


Tainted Love

by Talithax



Category: CI5: The New Professionals
Genre: Abduction, Angst, Established Relationship, Friendship, M/M, POV First Person, Serial Killer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-01
Updated: 2012-07-01
Packaged: 2017-11-08 22:21:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 93,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/448169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Talithax/pseuds/Talithax
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Begins 4 months after the end of my earlier New Pros fic, Instinct.</p><p>Can Chris & Sam's relationship survive both Sam's instinctual aversion to relationships and a serial killer case of the like no one's ever encountered before?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This could... possibly... be viewed as an AU.
> 
> It's set post CI5 - but the characters and even what they do is pretty much the same. The only real change to canon I've made is to the 'Wedding Disaster' - that I've changed considerably to suit my needs better.

==========  
Tainted Love  
==========

It quite frankly not taking much to divert my attention from the both uninteresting and uninformative CCTV footage screening – relentlessly – on the computer monitor, I seize on the welcome sound of footsteps entering the open-plan office behind me and swivel around in my chair to check out their source. Bored almost to the point of feeling in danger of lapsing into a catatonic state, I’m open to a diversion in whatever form I can get it and it’s down solely to this desperation that the sight of the two men all but marching through the office doesn’t automatically cause me to either sigh or roll my eyes.

Both tall and bland looking – think Clark Kent only without the oddly endearing geek factor - and wearing dark coloured suits that try too hard to give the impression of having come from Savile Row, they ooze officiousness from the toes of their identical black leather shoes all the way up to the tips of their very much product-free hair. Expressionless and focussed, their gaze doesn’t stray from their target of the door into Horvath’s office and I suspect it would take more than an impromptu striptease and gorilla routine performed on the desk on my part to get them to even so much as bother to glance in my direction.

“What do you reckon, spooks?” I murmur over my shoulder as, his own expression looking as haughty and as closed-off as I’ve ever seen it, Horvath opens the door and, without so much as a hint of greeting, gestures the two men into his office. “Whatever they are, talk about a pair of dicks,” I continue, gazing at the closed door for a couple of seconds before turning around and facing my partner. “Do you think Six have introduced a dress code or uniform since we last had the misfortune to run into them? Failing that, perhaps they’re clones.”

His face the very same picture of polite, slightly befuddled disinterest that I’ve been witnessing all day, Sam – looks past me – shrugs and returns his attention to his computer screen. “I wouldn’t know,” he mutters dismissively.

“You’re not even the slightest bit curious?” I query, knowing that I’m only running the risk of annoying Sam even further – than I already inadvertently have – but at the same time not really caring. If he wants to indulge in a mood or whatever it is that is his problem at the moment then, seriously, that’s his look out, not mine. Ignoring him isn’t going to achieve anything so I may as well just do my best to carry on as normal.

“No. I’m not.” Typing something on the keyboard with a sort of focussed, forceful intent that tells me as clearly as words ever could that I’d do well to turn my attention elsewhere and to cease prodding before I live to regret it and boredom becomes the least of my problems, Sam shifts in his chair and gives every indication of pretending that I don’t even exist.

Resisting – only just – the urge to poke my tongue out at the back of Sam’s head, I glance back towards Horvath’s closed door and sigh. “What do you reckon they want? While it wouldn’t surprise me to learn they were actually incapable of forming any other expression, it really didn’t look as though they were simply making a social call.”

“Chris…” Saving his work, Sam logs the computer off and, turning around, gives me a warning look. “At the risk of sounding patronising, what part of…” The rest of his no doubt sarcastic statement dying on his lips as Horvath’s door opens and the commander himself appears in the doorway, Sam falls silent and despite his best attempts to hide it a gleam of interest begins to shine in his eyes. “Horvath doesn’t look particularly impressed,” he comments.

“No… And he appears to be heading directly towards us,” I reply quietly, my earlier sense of interest turning to one of concern as Brenton Horvath comes to a stop in front of Sam. “Uh… Sir…” 

If there’s any truth in the more popular of rumours doing the rounds of our newly furnished and still smelling very much of fresh paint office, Horvath is actually in his early sixties but barely looks as though he’s celebrated his fiftieth birthday. Taller than the spook twins and wearing a suit that has never seen the inside of a Chinese sweat shop, Horvath always looks the very embodiment of a distinguished, career orientated gentleman. Dark grey hair with the slightest hint of a wave to it, piercing pale blue eyes that never fail to let whoever it is he’s speaking to know that, yes, without a doubt, he’d know the second they tried to lie to him and a fit, toned body that would be the envy of ninety percent of the British male population thirty years his junior, he paints an imposing picture that never fails to make me glad we work for the same team. Despite only having known the man for four months I already know I would never want to find myself on his bad side.

It clearly being the day for it, Horvath ignores me – what am, invisible or something? – and taps Sam curtly on the shoulder. “Mr Curtis, a word. My office.” His instruction duly delivered, he spins around and, without waiting for a response or bothering to spare a glance in my direction, strides back to his office.

Slightly bewildered to say the least by what’s going on, I turn to Sam and look at him expectantly. “You done something I should know about?” I ask, deliberately trying to keep my tone light as I watch as his expression of mild surprise is quickly replaced by one of sheer coolness and calm. It would, after all, take more than the risk of a bollocking from a superior officer to cause a crack to appear in Sam’s ever suave and unbothered façade and I almost admire his apparent lack of interest in whatever it is he’s about to walk into. Me, on the other hand, I’m already almost being eaten alive by curiosity and want desperately to know – like, now – just what it is that’s going on.

“Not that I’m aware of,” Sam states with an indifferent shrug as he stands up and follows Horvath into the office. To my disappointment but not surprise – why, no, I’m not above a spot of lurking in the vicinity of what should be a private conversation if the need arises – he pulls the door closed behind him, leaving me alone in the office with a sudden flood of random, possibly illogical and totally unanswerable questions rushing around my head.

What do a couple of spooks want with Sam? Assuming, that is, they even are spooks. And if they’re not spooks, who are they and who do they work for? Has he done something wrong? Is he in trouble? Maybe… Oh, hell. Maybe it’s a head-hunting exercise and they’ve come to offer him a job. Worse, perhaps yesterday’s minor meltdown caused him to get his boxers in such a knot that he doesn’t want to work with me and contacted them himself. Shit, shit, shit. I can see him doing it too. If he has though, and he walks back out here to share the news of his new position with me, then… Well, let’s just say my reaction will make his yesterday look like a complete non event in comparison. If, however, it’s not a job opportunity and he’s as surprised by their appearance in the office as I am, then… what do they want? Is it a case he may be able to assist them with? Are they wanting to second him? Already? So soon? And will Horvath even allow it?

My jumble of thoughts achieving little more than a vague sense of depression to settle over me, I look around for something – anything – different to focus on and am reluctantly going to return my half hearted attention to the CCTV footage when out of the corner of my eye I spot Eddie mooch into the office. Our resident systems analyst, tech support guru and representative of the emo subculture, if there’s anyone other than Horvath who knows what’s going on then it’s bound to be Eddie. Carrying a number of files that he flings with reckless abandon onto the desks of agents who have had the good sense to go home already, the most likely awful music pumping out of the earphones of his – never leave home without it – iPod protects him from the fact he’s not alone right up until I close my hand around his shoulder and cause him to very nearly jump out of his skin in shock.

“Chris!” he exclaims, his always immaculately kohled eyes widening in surprise as he drops his remaining files onto the floor and whips the earphones out of his ears. “I… Uh! I didn’t see you there.”

“Sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you,” I reply, flashing an apologetic smile as I pick the files up and hand them back to him. “I was just wondering,” I continue as Eddie takes the files and hugs them loosely to his scrawny black-clad chest, “if you perhaps knew anything about our two visitors?”

“Huh? What?” Blinking at me owlishly – apparently I’m not only invisible but I’ve also taken to speaking some weird foreign language known only to myself – Eddie takes a surreptitious step backwards and, as though viewing them as some form of protective amulet, hugs his files just that little bit tighter. “I… Uh…”

Although a random observer could be forgiven for thinking I’d once done something unspeakably horrible to Eddie and that he had good reason for being wary of me, the truth of the matter is I’ve only known him for a couple of months and have never so much as played a practical joke on him. I’m also not exactly scary or menacing looking. I can be, if the situation calls for it, and it’s a miracle what black combat gear accessorised with a few thousand pounds worth of weaponry can do for a person, but as a general rule I’m somewhat non threatening. I mean, I have big blue eyes and dimples for crying out loud. Strangers, even the odd – no pun intended – goth or emo, have been known to smile at me in the street. 

There always being an exception to every rule however, Eddie for reasons best known and kept to himself views me with, I swear, fear tinged trepidation. I usually only have to look at him to cause him to fumble with whatever it is he’s carrying at the time before scurrying off as fast as his scuffed Converse trainer clad feet will carry him. Sam thinks it’s because he’s a tad gullible and has coupled his obsession with crime shows on television with the fact I once worked at Quantico and have had actual – tenuous though they may be – dealings with the Behavioural Analyst Unit to mean that, yes, no doubt about it, I not only know many creative ways to kill him but also how to both hide the body and completely get away with it. Wanting to give him the benefit of doubt – surely he can’t be that… stupid? – I’m not exactly convinced by Sam’s hypothesis but at the same time don’t have any better theories myself. Truth be told everyone bar the receptionist, Marie, in the office could snap Eddie’s neck before he was even aware they were behind him, so why he’s settled on me being a threat to his dreary little emo existence is anyone’s guess. God knows it’s not my fault he may be regretting having chosen working for the latest secret wing of the British government instead of paying for his stellar computer hacking career in a jail cell somewhere.

“Don’t look so worried,” I murmur, gracing Eddie with a benign smile as I control the quite childish desire to – really give him cause to fear me – grab him by the shoulders and give him a good shaking. “I just want to know who the two suits in with Horvath are. That’s all.”

“I…” Paling, which given his ghastly – ghostly – pallor is no small achievement, as he weighs up who he fears most, me or Horvath, Eddie swallows hard and glances towards the nearest computer. “I really shouldn’t,” he mumbles under his breath as, clearly having decided my proximity makes me the scarier prospect at the moment, he takes a hesitant seat at the desk. “If… If you were meant to know, wouldn’t you… uh… know…”

“I just want to know which agency they’re from,” I snap, cutting Eddie off and fixing him with a hard – never forget I know where you live – look. “It’s not like I’m asking you for their passport number or bank account details. They’ve got my partner in there with them and while I may not be able to know what’s going on I would, at the very least, like to know who they bloody work for!”

My little outburst having the effect on Eddie’s delicate hold on reality that I’d hoped it would, he nods and logs onto the network. “I… I suppose I could have a look at the reception log for you.”

“Thank you. I’d really appreciate it.” Satisfied that I’m soon going to know the answer to at least one of the ever increasing number of questions circling in my head, I sink down into the chair closest to Eddie and, despite knowing it will only add to his paranoia, watch him intently. His fingers, complete with de rigueur short, glossy black finger nails, fly over the keyboard and he attacks the task with a confidence usually found lacking during our brief encounters. Every few seconds, although he tries hard to hide it, he glances in my direction and quite literally twitches when he finds I’m both still there and still staring at him. 

I could probably, if left entirely to my own devices and under no sort of time-frame, have found my way into the reception log myself but, and there’s no point trying to pretend otherwise here, computers have never exactly been my forte. I’m as adept with them as the average user – I know, for example, how to download torrents that, I, in my role of glorified law enforcement officer shouldn’t really be doing – and I’ll readily agree that life is predominantly made better for computers (can you honestly imagine a world without Google?) but that’s about it. I could no more hack into a computer network than I could flap my arms and fly.

On the subject of flying, Sam’s always found it fascinating that I can pilot just about anything that can become airborne but baulk at trying to further my computer skills. Given how technological planes are these days – not to mention how persistent Sam could be on the subject when he wanted to be – there were even a few times when I used to wonder the same thing. I think I’ve worked it out though. When I’m in the air I’m essentially holding my own life, and quite frequently others as well, in my hands. I have to concentrate and be confident in my skills because there’s a lot at stake. Behind a computer, however? No thrill, no risk, no… interest.

“How’s it going?” I prompt, leaning forward and immediately causing Eddie to shift his chair further away from me. “You don’t even have to tell me their names, you know. Just knowing where they’ve come from will be a start.”

“Uh…” Running his fingers through his over long fringe, Eddie astonishes himself by meeting my gaze for all of a split second before nervously glancing over his shoulder towards Horvath’s door. “They’re… Uh… They’re from the Secret Intelligence Service,” he mumbles as a drop of sweat works its way down his pale cheek. “I… I can’t tell you anything else.”

Oddly pleased, despite my partner still being in the office with them and, really, being none the wiser as to what’s going on, that my read on the two suits had been proven correct, I nod. “Ha! Spooks. I knew it.”

“Sp-spooks?” Eddie stammers, looking, for the first time, interested. “Like in the TV show?”

“Secret Intelligence Service. Spooks. MI6,” I mutter, quickly choosing not to show my ignorance in regards to not knowing the television show he’s referring to by ignoring the question. “Bastards! Just what the hell do they want with Sam?”

“I… I think you might be going to… uh… find out!” The last remaining hint of colour draining from Eddie’s face as Horvath’s door suddenly opens, he swipes frantically at the computer and somehow manages to get it turned off before jumping to his feet and, like an emo rat deserting a flooding bedsit, bolting out of the room.

Muttering, “wimp,” under my breath, I stand up and watch as one of the suits walks through the door and, once more without bothering to acknowledge my presence, promptly heads towards the exit. Behind the suit, looking as deceptively unfazed as I’ve ever seen him, comes Sam and he too doesn’t look at me as he follows the spook out of the office.

“Hey!” Alarmed by this turn of events, I start to rush over to Sam and am stopped by Horvath appearing out of nowhere and placing his hand flat against my chest. Although common sense -- along with a healthy dose of self preservation – tells me I really shouldn’t, I nonetheless try to push past Horvath in my haste to stop Sam from disappearing through the door behind the spook. “Sam! Hey! Just what the…”

“Mr Keel!” Horvath barks, positioning himself directly in front of me and blocking my view of the door. He doesn’t, it just has to be said, look particularly impressed. Whether this is by current events in general or my current behaviour is anyone’s guess. “My office.”

My shoulders slumping at the sound of the door out of the office softly closing, a pissed off, huffy sound escapes my lips and I glare at Horvath. “But…”

“Now!”

While it’s only one word, of merely one syllable at that, the implied level of authority – or is threat? – in Horvath’s command is so great that I simply give a curt nod and stalk into his office. “Fine,” I grind out as he follows me into the room before pulling the door shut and walking around his desk to take a seat. “I trust I’ll be getting an explanation as to just what the hell is going on here, yes?”

“What you’ll be getting are a number of questions that you will be expected to answer with complete honesty and a lot less attitude,” a male voice curiously devoid of both accent and inflection announces from behind me. “You need to remember that you’re not in America now and that we British… go about our business in a far more civilised manner,” he continues, looking down his prominent – especially when compared to his rather beady and close-set eyes – nose as he steps around me and takes a seat by the corner, just to the left of Horvath, of the desk.

“Excuse me?” My concern about Sam taking an immediate backseat to my instantaneous dislike of the man, who I now recognise to be the second spook, I stare at him balefully and shake my head. “I’ll have you know I lived and worked in Britain for six years and am well versed in your… civilised way of operating. Forgive me, however, since when is…”

“Mr Keel,” Horvath interrupts, gesturing that I should take a seat in the chair in front of the desk, “allow me to introduce Mr Harrison, a representative of the Secret Intelligence Service. He’s here to ask you a few questions that I fully expect you to answer to the best of your ability.”

“I’m honoured,” I drawl, settling myself in the chair and flashing Harrison my best button-pushing grin. “To be in the presence of one of Her Majesty’s spooks and to get to play twenty questions as well. It must be my lucky night.”

Shooting me the sort of warning look that roughly translates as ‘you’ll be lucky to have a job tomorrow if you don’t get with the program and at the very least feign pleasantries’, Horvath gives a slow shake of his head before glancing at Harrison. “Please. Begin. You have my word that Mr Keel will cooperate.”

“Like I have a choice,” I snort, folding my arms across my chest in a classic defensive pose, the strangeness of the situation not lost on me in the slightest. Two spooks march into Horvath’s office, Sam gets dragged in after them, one spook with Sam in tow depart the room and disappear, and now… Now it’s my turn? “Come on then, Harrison, hit me.” Let’s get this damn show on the road. “I promise to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me God.”

“I expect nothing less,” Harrison sniffs, the disdain he’s feeling for having to lower his standards to speak to me emanating from his every haughty pore. “The day in question is Tuesday last. I require you to account for your movements from midday to midnight.”

“Tuesday last?” I echo, taken aback by the nature of Harrison’s question. Accounting for my movements? Wary of suddenly feeling as though I need an alibi for something I have absolutely no clue about, I glance at Horvath and find him gazing at me with a look of complete expectation – ‘do as you’re told and don’t play games… or else ‘ – on his face. “Uh… Tuesday, as in this Tuesday, or Tuesday last week?” I add hesitantly, not really caring if I come across as either facetious or dim-witted because the stakes strike me as being higher than they seemed a moment ago and I want to make sure I’m getting everything as right as I possibly can.

His expression one of disbelief tinged with contempt, Harrison sneers at me and graces Horvath with a pitying look. “Tuesday just gone,” he states, retrieving a small recording device from the pocket of his jacket and placing it in the middle of the desk. “If I’d meant Tuesday last week I would have said… Tuesday of last week.”

“Of course you would have,” I mutter, putting on a small performance of feigning embarrassment at my own stupidity and rolling my eyes. “Sorry. I am, after all, only an American and not quite as in… intel… intelli… you know, not quite as bright, as you fine British folk.” 

“Mr Keel,” Horvath murmurs with a thin lipped smile that does little to hide his annoyance. “If you would be so good as to save the yokel comedy routine for another day and simply answer Mr Harrison’s questions, it would be… greatly… appreciated.”

“Of course. It would be my pleasure.” Swivelling around in my chair until I’m fully facing Harrison, I beam at him and plaster my best ‘you have my undivided attention’ expression on my face. “This Tuesday, yeah? From midday?”

“From midday, this Tuesday… last,” Harrison confirms, leaning forward and hitting the record button on the recorder. “Please. In your own words.”

Although I really want to hit him with the obvious retort of ‘well, whose other words would I be using, huh?’ I control myself and nod my agreement. “Midday, this Tuesday… last… I was engaged in a task of surveillance with my partner, Sam Curtis. It was passive surveillance – watch, record, photograph, and we took over from Campbell and Tang at eleven. Uh…” Pausing, because I don’t know how far I’m meant to go in describing the case, I look to Horvath to save me and remain silent as I wait for him to take over.

“I have already told Mr Harrison that the details of the case do not concern him and have given him my assurance that you were both following my instructions at the time,” Horvath intones matter-of-factly. “You need only to state at what time you were relieved and what followed.”

“Uh-huh.” It’s immature and perfectly pointless of me, but I derive a small degree of satisfaction over keeping the spooks in the dark over our case and shoot Harrison a smug look. “Okay. After a truly fascinating afternoon spent in the front seats of a Mondeo we were relieved at six and drove straight back to the office where, the day’s fun not yet over, we then spent an hour uploading photos and writing up reports. Once this was done we called it quits for the day and…” Shrugging, I know I have no choice but to tell the truth and decide to simply go for it. “Not having eaten anything worth remembering while stuck in the car we decided to pick up take-away from Giuseppe’s before going back to my place.”

“We? Do you often, even after having spent all afternoon stuck in a car together, spend the evening with your partner?” Harrison prompts with – unspoken condemnation – a raised eyebrow that makes me want to reach out and slap him.

“If I want to get lucky then, yes, I do,” I retort, disguising the bluntness – like it’s really any of your business, asshole – of my response with a flirtatious grin. “And should you be curious, despite it happening after midnight and thus outside your imposed time-frame of this… conversation… the answer is…”

“Trust me. I’m not curious,” Harrison mutters with a grunt, his expression one of repulsion.

“No? Are you…”

“I’m sure. I’m only interested in the hours between midday and midnight. Now, please. Focus. You picked up take-away and went back to your place, which gets us to…?”

Shrugging to indicate that not having any interest in my sex life is his loss, I lean forward and plaster what I hope looks like a picture of concentration on my face. “Hmm… We got to Giuseppe’s around seven-thirty, spent about thirty minutes chatting to Giuseppe himself while we waited for our pasta, so… I’d say we got home pretty close to eight-thirty and, well, at the risk of sounding like two of the most boring men in London, that’s where we stayed until it was time to leave for work the next morning.”

“You are prepared to state under oath that your partner did not leave your sight between the time you arrived at your apartment and midnight?” Harrison queries, ignoring the sharp look Horvath is giving him and staring at me intently.

The level of cool and calm I’m already struggling to maintain in danger of disintegrating once and for all, I jump to my feet and gesture wildly at the two men sitting before me. “I’ve just about had enough of this!” I exclaim, frowning at Harrison as he shakes his head in disapproval. “What? Don’t look at me like. I’m not something you’ve trod in and I think I’ve been fairly damn patient answering your questions without being given any sort of hint as to just what the hell is going on here. Am I right in thinking you’re wanting to know if I can provide an alibi for Sam, huh? Is that it?”

“Mr Keel, please sit back down,” Horvath states calmly, any annoyance he’s feeling at my behaviour being kept well hidden. “Neither Mr Curtis nor yourself are under any suspicion,” he continues, glancing at Harrison as though he’s almost daring him to argue. “The Secret Intelligence Service merely asked my permission to question the pair of you and in the name of cooperation I agreed.”

“Yeah? Then why did Sam follow the other guy out of the office?” I mutter querulously as, my scene over for the time being, I flop back down into the chair and sigh. “You say we’re not under suspicion but it’s sure feeling like we are from where I’m sitting.”

“Mr Curtis is at Vauxhall answering the same questions being posed to you,” Horvath replies, glancing first at his watch and then towards the door. “Mr Harrison, I believe we are almost finished here, yes?”

Looking surprised that Horvath would have the nerve to pull rank on what he no doubt believes is his stage, Harrison snorts and gives me an evil look that he probably hopes leaves me shaking in my boots. “He hasn’t answered whether Curtis left his company at any time throughout the evening.”

“He went to the bathroom a couple of times, as, before you ask, did I, but that would be it,” I respond, smiling back at Harrison simply to let him know I don’t find him in the slightest bit menacing. “Unless whatever it is that you’re not telling me about took place in the cemetery I’m fortunate enough to call a garden, I’m telling you Sam couldn’t have done it. We ate together, Sam washed up while I… uh… supervised, then he read a book while I channel surfed and complained about English television before we both went to bed just after eleven. Oh, and yes, despite it probably offending your very moral fibre, we did sleep together and, no, Sam didn’t sneak out of bed and the reason I can say this with confidence is that I’m a light sleeper and it takes next to nothing to wake me, so… Satisfied?”

“Regardless of Mr Harrison’s levels of satisfaction,” Horvath announces before Harrison has even had time to open his mouth, “I’m perfectly satisfied with everything I’ve heard and hereby call this… discussion… closed. Mr Keel, you are free to leave and I thank you for your time.”

A truly amusing expression of surprise flitting over Harrison’s no longer quite so smug looking face, he stares at Horvath as though the man has suddenly grown a second head. “But…”

“Are you calling my agent a liar?” Horvath inquires with a practised, authoritative ease that has Harrison squirming in his seat. “Perhaps the time has come for me to have a word with your commanding officer,” he continues, standing up and swiftly retrieving his coat from the rack by the door. “Come along, Harrison. I’ll give you a lift to Vauxhall.”

My smile broadening, I stand up and give Harrison a small wave. “Bye. It’s been a… pleasure… meeting you.”

“I will see to it personally that Mr Curtis is sent home as a matter of priority,” Horvath states, glaring at Harrison as he takes his sweet time getting up from his chair. “Come on, Harrison. I haven’t got all night. Mr Keel, I shall see you tomorrow.”

Accepting that I’ve effectively been dismissed, I nod and, not a second too soon, take my leave of the office. Heading back to my desk as though on autopilot – seriously, I still don’t know what’s going on yet feel as though I’ve quite literally been through the wringer – I slump down in my chair without really thinking about what I’m doing and watch as Horvath and Harrison leave the office and walk towards the exit. Neither look at me, but even in my slightly stunned state I derive a degree of malicious satisfaction from the pissed off expression on Harrison’s face and childishly flip the bird at his retreating back. Smug git. Looking down his oversized nose at me and silently passing holier-than-thou judgement on the nature of my relationship with my partner.

My partner.

Sam.

Shit! Still none the wiser as to why the spooks are so interested in our whereabouts last Tuesday, my gaze slips to the phone on the desk and I contemplate picking up the handset and giving Backup a call. If anyone could sniff out what was so interesting about Tuesday then Backup could and I know she’d only be more than happy to help. I’d have to explain why I was needing the help though and it’s the thought of causing her to be dragged into the realm of uncertainty and worry that I’m currently inhabiting that stops me from reaching for the phone. Eddie, I suspect, would have scurried out of the office the second he escaped from me earlier, which means… If I really want to try to discover what happened on Tuesday to get the spooks sniffing around, I’ll have to try to find it myself. Alternatively, I could go to Sam’s apartment and wait for him to put in an appearance in the hope that he’s somehow been told more than I have.

Liking this idea – even if it does go hand in hand with running the risk of further souring Sam’s evening – far more than pitting my wits against an internet search, I stand up and grab my jacket from the back of the chair. Pulling it on, I dig my keys out of the pocket and, before I can fall prey to second thoughts, leave the office and take the stairs down to the car park. Given Sam’s brain-fade yesterday and general coolness towards me today he probably won’t be overly delighted to see me lurking in his apartment but, well, that’s just tough. If I go home I’ll only sit around coming up with increasingly far fetched scenarios as to what could possibly be going on and, oddly enough, I can’t say that exactly appeals. Of course, if Sam isn’t released and I’m left alone…

Not liking the direction my thoughts are taking me in, I choke back a sigh and use the remote to unlock the car. Climbing in, I banish all doubts from my mind and, needing something different to think about, decide to call in on a supermarket on my way to Sam’s in order to pick up something for dinner. While, cooking not exactly being one of my favourite things to… attempt, my preferred option would be to just pick up take-away, the uncertainty in respect to how long it might be before Sam gets home makes it not even worth contemplating. Sure, pizza can be reheated with ease, but I think seeing that dished up on his dinner table would be all that it would take today to push Sam over the edge. Under normal circumstances this, for reasons of ill advised amusement, wouldn’t particularly bother me. Hell, some times I may even actively court that sort of reaction. Today, however… Yeah. I just don’t think so.

Satisfied that I’ve got a plan of sorts, I drive the car out of the parking lot and turn it in the direction of the nearest supermarket. It not having achieved anything so far, I don’t really think about anything other than the task – something easy to cook that not even I can stuff up, perhaps a bottle of wine to appeal to Sam’s better side – at hand as I drive and I even manage to carry this faux sense of calm with me into the store. There, after much dithering, I settle on a fresh, prepacked beef stir fry – just add wok and heat, I think even I can manage that – and a bottle of Australian merlot before continuing on my way. Not being a wine drinker, and unlikely to ever become one despite Sam never missing an opportunity to offer to educate me on what I’m missing out on, I subscribe to the truly classy ‘if it costs a reasonable amount then surely it must be okay’ school of thought when it comes to buying wine and always sit there mentally crossing my fingers when Sam first tries it. Fortunately it’s been a case of so far, so good with my purchases though, so hopefully tonight’s bottle won’t prove to be an exception to the rule.

It being late enough in the evening for traffic to be light, it doesn’t take long to reach Sam’s Docklands apartment and I’m still busying myself with hoping I’ve bought the right wine as I’m using my key to unlock his door and walk inside. Sam hasn’t beaten me there and while this doesn’t surprise me it does bring a sense of reality I’d been hoping to avoid come crashing down around my ears and I suddenly feel at a loss as to what to do with myself. Dropping the stir fry mix onto the counter in the kitchen, I uncork the bottle of merlot – I don’t see how myself, but apparently red wine improves if it’s allowed to ‘breathe’ and I find this theory to be so odd that I’ve never forgotten it – and place a glass along side it before walking into the living area and sinking down on the sofa.

What if I’ve made a mistake in choosing to come here? Just because I’m being eaten alive by curiosity and want to see Sam doesn’t mean he’ll react with delight and rapture seeing me here in his apartment. In fact, if he’s still in the grips of yesterday’s sudden attack of the vapours it may be enough to set him off once and for all. Same old, same old. Sticking my nose in where it isn’t wanted and persevering in the face of pig headed adversity – it’s like the five years we spent apart never even happened.

I know Sam. The five years we spent as partners, first solely in the professional sense and then much more, pretty much null and voids both the five years spent on opposite sides of the pond and, on my part, steadfastly refusing to acknowledge I’d ever even met anyone called Sam. He’s five years older and his eyesight has deteriorated to the point of needing glasses for reading, but other than that he basically looks the same and, personality wise, hasn’t changed in any particularly noticeable way. The obsessive compulsive issues in respect to tidiness are still there. As is the lovingly maintained wardrobe of expensive clothes and shoes that, unlike mine, regularly see polish. He still likes cars, can still bore for Gold on the subject of football and, odd creature that he is, can still say with a straight face that he honestly enjoys going to the gym and working out.

He hasn’t changed. Just as I, newly developed aim to not simply cut and run if things become too difficult for me notwithstanding, probably haven’t changed much either. I’m still prone to acting first and possibly, if I can’t avoid it, thinking later, and I still prefer a good sleep in to a jog. I also still possess the ability to adapt to whatever situation I’ve found myself in with incredible ease and, knowing how good I really do have it, making the absolute most of it.

Five years are a long time. I know that. But they’re history now and so what if, in many aspects, it doesn’t even feel as though they ever happened. I like, and draw great comfort from, the fact we’ve slotted so neatly back into the new and improved versions of our old lives. It really is almost as if we’d never been apart. We work together and have keys to each other’s apartments and it really is just like the good old days. I love it. Each day I’ve spent in London since returning has been better than what I’d have called a good day back in the States. As truly simplistic as it sounds, I’m happy. I’ve been fortunate enough to given a second chance with both the life and the man that I never should have ran away from in the first place and it’s something, this time around, I’m prepared to fight for. Just… Whatever it takes… Circumstances transpired to cause everything to go wrong once before and I’m determined not to let it happen again.

Truth be told, despite the doubts clouding my thoughts at the moment because, well, they can, and because, hey, I’m spoilt for choice in respect to which cause for concern I should be wasting my time on, yesterday’s bunny-in-the-headlights meltdown was all but inevitable. Things were just going too smoothly to last. There was the, for the want of a better description, honeymoon period spent staying with Sam in his apartment while waiting for mine to be ready – no fights, good times, lots and lots of time devoted to rediscovering each other’s ‘hot spots’. Three rather glorious weeks followed by another month of hard slog ensuring that our skills were up-to-date and falling into bed every night too exhausted to do anymore than roll over and go straight to sleep. And then…

Just… life.

Life as it had been, without so much as hint of what it had become and, as I should have known was coming, it suddenly reached a completely random point where it all just become too much for Sam and he had to – shut down – bolt with his tail between his legs.

As events go it was a… non-event to say the very least. In fact, it was just breakfast. There we were, after Sam had spent the night, in my kitchen muttering about what to eat and whether we wanted to do anything on our rare day off, when… His expression becoming decidedly blank and slightly stunned looking, Sam shook his head a couple of times, mumbled something about ‘not being able to do this’ and, before I’d even had time ask just what it was he was on about, up and left.

Knowing the way his mind operates – ‘this has been all be too easy, ergo it can’t be right and I need to retreat into myself in order to think things through for the umpteenth time’ – I wasn’t even really all that bothered. Slightly put out, for sure, as Sam took with him any plans I might have had for the day, but that was about it. His timing mightn’t have been ideal, but compared to being broken up with at a funeral it was nothing, a minor blip not worth getting worked up about. I told myself so long as things seemed the same at work the following day and his knee jerk reaction hadn’t stretched as far as requesting an immediate transfer or new partner then… he’d just get over it. He’d work out that the contentment we were feeling now didn’t have to be tarnished by the past and that his life really was the better for having me in it and that, until the next brain freeze, would just be it.

And, what’s more, until now with doubt deciding it would be fun to get the better of me, things had more or less been going as I’d expected them to. Sam was sitting at his desk when I got into work and while he spoke to me more like an acquaintance than a lover, that was okay because at least he was speaking to me. He also never mentioned anything about wanting a change in our working arrangements, so reassured by all of this I was prepared to just leave him to it and give him as long as he needed.

Well, that had been the plan right up until the spooks marched into the office and caused my carefully constructed world to go pear shaped.

Sitting here on Sam’s sofa now however, you name it and I’m doubting it.

What if yesterday’s ‘I can see clearly’ moment, instead of being a passing phase, is a sign of things to come and he decides he really doesn’t want our relationship to keep going? Maybe there’s a lot more to MI6’s interest in Tuesday than Horvath was able to let on. And, if so, what’s going on and what could it all mean? Could either of us actually be in trouble? While I’m at it, should I even really be here? Seeing as Sam’s already off his game, a run in with a couple of dead-from-the-knees-up spooks won’t have improved his health and temper any and the last thing he may feel like seeing is me lying in wait for him in his living room. What if he immediately jumps to the conclusion that I’m trying to smother him with neediness?

Just… Fuck. Who needs enemies when they’ve got their own head working against them?

Insecurities and nerves adding up to make a concentrated bid on getting the better of me, I start to toy with the idea of simply getting up and leaving. Wanting still to let Sam know that I’m definitely thinking of him though, I could leave the bottle of wine on the bench as a sign to let him know I’ve been through and simply… leave him to it. If he wants to talk then, hey, he knows how to pick up a phone.

Far from impressed with my reasoning yet nonetheless unable to counter it, I’m in the process of levering myself up from the sofa when – with perfect timing – the sound of a key turning in a lock solves my dilemma for me. For a fleeting moment I feel as though I’m frozen in position, not really sitting on the sofa, but not really standing up either, and I don’t know how best to continue. Do I straighten up and, all the time resisting the urge to bombard him with questions, bound over to Sam? Or… Do I sit back down and pretend that his return is of very little interest to me?

Mentally flipping a coin in my head, I settle for remaining on the sofa and have just finished positioning myself – ‘oh, don’t mind me. I won’t get up to greet you because I’m perfectly comfortable right here’ – when the door opens and Sam walks inside. Taking his jacket off, he hangs it carefully on the coat rack and begins to walk towards the kitchen without giving any indication – oh yeah, it’s so the day for it – of acknowledging my presence. He looks tired and his face is a blank canvas – expressionless and as closed off as I’ve ever seen in. Instinct makes me want to go to him, if not for his benefit than for mine, but a sixth sense tells me to wait and for once I actually listen to it.

“I…” I want to say something, just to let him know that I’m here more than anything, but I don’t know what. I don’t even know if we’re… okay… let alone what may have just happened at MI6’s headquarters at Vauxhall and feel more out of my depth than I can remember feeling for a long time. I want to feel sure that I’ve done the right thing by being here, and I think I have because a part of me is already feeling a little better simply for having seen Sam, but… Okay. So I’m here. Now what?

“I… Uh… There’s an open bottle of red on the bench,” I call out just a touch lamely as, feeling in desperate need of something to do with myself, I pick the remote up from the coffee table and switch the television on. If Sam replies I don’t hear him and for a couple of almost quite pleasant minutes I indulge in the aimless pursuit of channel surfing. As is usually par for the course with UK television – to hell with Sam’s opinions on the subject, assuming I don’t end this evening out on my ass, that is, I just have to sign him up for cable – nothing holds my interest for longer than a few minutes and it doesn’t take me long to hit the ‘off’ button with a snort of disgust. 

Alone with my thoughts again, I get up and, with no real plan or even forethought in mind, make my way over to Sam’s bedroom. Finding the door closed and the sound of the shower in the en suite running, I sigh and, having achieved absolutely nothing, head straight back to the living room. There, I perch myself on the edge of an armchair and resort to another tried and true method of time wastage – really, it’s right up there with staring aimlessly at the television – of simply staring vacantly into space. No particular item or even focus point holds my attention and, fighting a gratifyingly easy war to keep my mind blank, I just sit there like a complete and utter waste of space. I feel lost, as though knowing the right thing to do is out of my reach, and I don’t know what to do with myself. Sam’s home, which is definitely a step in the right direction, but his body language as he looked straight through me made it clear he wasn’t in the mood for company, so…

My limited thought processes having come full circle, maybe I really should just get up and go. I have nothing to offer, it’s fairly obvious that my presence is well and truly not required and… if I’m going to do nothing I may as well do nothing back at my own place. At least there I wouldn’t have to worry about inadvertently putting my foot in it. Not only that, I’d also have access to more television channels to flick through as well.

The thought of being able to continue my fretting in the privacy and comfort of my own apartment appealing to me more and more, I turn my thoughts to the benefits of alerting Sam to my departure – feign a phone call calling me away, or just yell goodbye as I pull the door shut? – versus simply leaving without a word. It not being the day for reaching rapid conclusions, I’m still hesitating over whether leaving is really what I want to do when the bedroom door opens and Sam appears. Where I’m sitting being directly in his line of sight, I dredge up a bland smile to flash at him but, as he once again ignores me and quickly disappears into the study, it’s immediately fairly damn obvious that I need not have wasted my energy. 

Suddenly more annoyed than put off by Sam’s disinterested behaviour, I stand up as the study door is pushed closed and stalk into the kitchen. My mood being nothing if not as fickle and as changeable as the weather, my one aim in life at the moment is to stand my ground – so what if I’m probably an unwanted guest in his home? It’s not like acknowledging me would kill him or anything like that -- and with this in mind I decide the time has come to try my luck with the stir fry. As I’ve now – yes, just like that – made up my mind to stay, I can’t think of any reason not to revert to my original plan of attempting to make dinner and, not caring if it pushes Sam’s buttons, deliberately make far more noise than I really have to as I search through the cupboards for the wok. Finding it in the last cupboard I come to, I place it on the stove, retrieve the stir fry pack from the bench and generally just throw myself into the – self imposed and possibly ill advised – task at hand. 

Not being, by any stretch of the imagination, what you would exactly call a ‘cook’ (my idea of cooking is pretty much transferring frozen food from the freezer and putting it in the oven on whatever heat takes my fancy until it’s edible), I read the thankfully brief instructions on the stir fry pack a couple of times before shrugging and just dumping the contents in the wok. The initial temperature and heating method may be different, but I can’t really see much difference between my usual oven-friendly method of ‘cooking’ and this and just hope for the best. There doesn’t seem to be much I could stuff up, if nothing else.

Pleased to have something to do with my time, I focus my full attention on preparing the stir fry and when it’s ready and dished up on two plates I can’t help but feel pretty – hopeful – chuffed with myself. It certainly both looks and smells like beef stir fry, and the piece of capsicum I tasted while transferring it on to the plate tasted like I thought it should, so… Yay? Maybe it won’t be a complete disaster after all.

It’s only as I’m carrying the plates over to the table that I realise I’ve, totally without thinking, dished up a meal for Sam as well. Placing them on the table, I put it down to being nothing more than pure and simple instinct and, without pausing to second guess myself, walk across to the study and knock none-too-lightly on the door. “I’ve just dished up dinner,” I call over my shoulder as I turn around and head back to the kitchen to pick up cutlery. “If you’re hungry I’ve put on a plate on the table for you. Alternatively… Stay in there and starve for all I care…”

Cutlery obtained and no sound of movement coming from the study, I tuck a bottle of water from the refrigerator under my arm and make my way back to the table. Sitting down, I twist the lid off the bottle and am just bringing it to my lips when Sam silently materialises and takes a seat. Many sarcastic comments fly into my head at the surprising sight of him but I somehow manage to bite my tongue and calmly finish taking a drink. Leaving the lid off, I place the bottle on table and, all the time watching Sam out of the corner of my eye as he keeps glancing from his plate to the kitchen and back again, pick up my fork.

“If you’re looking for take-away containers, don’t,” I mutter flatly, giving Sam a cool look as for the first time all day he meets my gaze. “Believe it or not I… uh… sort of made it myself,” I add, spearing a piece of beef with my fork and waving it at Sam as – hallelujah – his blank expression slowly gives way to one of surprise tinged with, knowing my lack of kitchen skills as well as he does, possible dismay. “Don’t look at me like that. As I don’t think I’ve done too badly, if it sucks blame Tesco.”

“I…” Sam smiles at me weakly and picks up his fork. “I’m sure it will be… fine.”

“Whatever.” Although he’s deigned to eat with me I feel no better for having Sam, who’s lapsed immediately back into silence, next to me and we eat like a couple of strangers who have somehow found themselves seated at the same table together. We don’t talk or look at each other and I honestly can’t stand it. Irritation and frustration bubble inside me but, not knowing what to do about it that doesn’t involve shouting or making a scene, I choke it back down and just keep on eating. The stir fry may have more in common with a meal from a shopping centre food court than it does haute cuisine, but there’s certainly nothing wrong with it and I just wish I wasn’t wound so tight and could actually enjoy it more.

The growing discomfort I’m feeling ruining my appetite, I push my plate away with food still on it and stare at Sam until he lifts his head to look at me. “Are you in trouble?” I ask plainly. “If you are, I want you to know that…”

“I’m not in trouble,” Sam interrupts with another weak smile as he places his fork on his plate and reaches across the table to lightly pat my arm with his hand. “Coffee?”

His simple response confusing me even more than his silence had, I jump to my feet and grab the two plates from off the table. “I’ll get it,” I state, walking into the kitchen before Sam has had time to open his mouth and dumping the plates in the sink. I’m glad he’s not in trouble, and possibly without either rhyme or reason I believe that he’s telling me the truth and he isn’t, but… If he’s not in trouble then what the fuck gives with the visit from the spooks and the way he’s been ignoring me? I just don’t get it.

Sighing, I grab two cups from the cupboard and start to prepare the coffee. Not wanting to look at Sam for fear of launching into the scene I’m still trying desperately to avoid, I place both my palms flat on the bench and gaze without really seeing it at the coffee machine. I want to do the right thing, but how can I when I don’t even know what to do with myself. I want Sam to talk to me and I want to be there for him, but I can’t do it all myself and just wish he’d give me a sign that he’s at least okay with me being here.

“Chris?”

Not being aware that Sam had even gotten up from the table, the sound of his voice shocks me almost as much as the warmth of his breath wafting over my right ear and the feel of his arms sliding around my waist does. “Thank you,” he murmurs, pressing his back against mine and resting his chin on my shoulder. “Just… Thank you for being here. I didn’t expect it, and I know I don’t deserve it, but I… I’m just really glad you’re here, that’s all.” 

Stiffening at Sam’s touch, I marvel at – his timing – the strange way his mind operates and, still smarting from having been ignored, go on the defensive. “Are your stars or planets aligning in such a way at the moment to make you think fucking with my head is, I don’t know, a good idea or good for a laugh or something, huh?” I reply quietly, deliberately trying to keep my voice emotion free and managing to just sound weary instead. “First you walk out on me yesterday, grunt the odd syllable or two at work today, and now… Now this. Being led off by a spook… Doing your very best to pretend you don’t even know I’m in your apartment. I… I don’t know why I bother, I really don’t. I…” Not wanting to turn around because I don’t want to look at Sam, I take a deep breath and slowly shake my head. “I know I’m far from perfect, and I know there’s probably a lot of things about me that annoy you, but I… I’m not a toy and nor am I a doormat for you to walk over at will. If… Uh… If you think we’ve made a mistake in wanting to travel down this path again then just tell me now and I’ll go. I don’t want…”

“I’m sorry,” Sam interrupts, stepping back and loosening his arms around my waist only to slowly turn me around so we’re facing each other. “Look at me, Chris,” he continues, cupping my cheek in his hand and tilting my head back until I have no other choice, unless I want to huff and puff and squirm free, to meet his concerned gaze. “I should have shared my… inner freak out… with you yesterday instead of just bolting and I definitely shouldn’t have ignored you this evening and… You’ve got to believe me when I say I really am very sorry for having shut you out and that I meant what I said about being glad that you’re here.”

“You have an odd way of showing it,” I snort, narrowing my eyes but, liking Sam’s proximity and the feel of his hand on my cheek even if I don’t want to show it, making no attempt to move away. “I know you well enough to know yesterday’s mini meltdown was as a result of suddenly feeling an extreme case of déjà vu which in turn led you to question why it sometimes seems as though the last five years never took place, but… Seriously, would it have killed you to have actually said something to me? I think what we’ve got is worth fighting for but I’m not going to fight if I’m the only one putting any effort into it. As for this evening? Would a simple ‘hello’ have been to much to ask for?”

Dropping his hand, Sam shifts around me and busies himself with preparing the coffee. “I have no excuse for yesterday other than I’m an idiot who still hasn’t quite grasped the concept of actually… uh… giving voice to my concerns,” he responds softly as I lean against the bench and watch him closely. “Tonight though, I… Again, I’m sorry. I didn’t know how to react to the bad news I’d been given so I just shut you out.” Pausing, Sam sighs and runs his fingers through his hair. “Just by being here though and, as hard as I suspect it was for you, leaving me to it, it… it’s helped, it’s helped a lot, and you have no idea how thankful I am to you for… persevering.”

“You know me, I’m stubborn,” I murmur, shifting closer to Sam and giving him a – ‘you’re forgiven’ – bump with my hip. I could remain on my high horse and demand more apologies and better explanations but my notoriously short attention span has been ensnared by Sam’s mention of bad news and learning more about that has instantly become more important. Besides, he’s apologised, I believe him and, feeling far better than I did five minutes ago, it’s time to move on. “Now… I suppose I’ll consider forgiving you, but only if you share with me everything you know about whatever it is that’s somehow drawn us to the spooks’ attention.

“That’s… all… you want?” Sam queries, sounding surprised as he hands me a cup of coffee. “I must say I expected something a bit more… uh… substantial.”

“Like what?” I reply, taking the coffee with a smile of thanks. “I’m neither stupid nor deluded enough to try to elicit a promise from you that you’ll never close yourself off again and will always share what’s going on in your fool head, so…” Trailing off, I shrug and begin to walk towards the living room. “Come on. Unless you really want me to impose more provisos on my magnanimous offer of forgiveness, I’m good, trust me. You’ve already managed to drag back a few positive marks next to your name and now I just want to know why those smug gits from MI6 were playing twenty questions with us. My patience, as you well know, only stretches so far.”

“Don’t I know it,” Sam responds with a welcome degree of cheerfulness as, the coffee machine turned off and wiped clean, he follows me into the living room. “But… You’re totally right, of course,” he adds, watching as I take a seat on the sofa before, with the slightest of shrugs to indicate he’s made his mind up, sitting down next to me and placing his cup on the coffee table. “Not wanting to be put on the spot in respect to making promises my… uh… stuck in the mud, set in my ways nature would struggle to keep, let’s just… move forward.”

Nodding, I take a sip of coffee that very nearly burns a hole in my tongue and quickly place the cup next to Sam’s. “I knew I should have made the coffee,” I mock complain, fanning my hand in front of my mouth as Sam raises his eyebrow and gives me a pitying look. “You hardly ever use enough milk. It’s like you think there’s a milk famine going on or something.”

“Give it a couple of minutes and it will cool down,” Sam replies, Mr Logic personified, as he picks his coffee up and takes a mouthful. If he finds it too hot – and even if he did I know he wouldn’t show it – he gives no indication and, going on his self-satisfied expression, seems to enjoy it immensely. “Mmm… Perfect. You just need to be patient.”

“Uh… Remember who it is you’re talking to here. Short attention span, patience is a virtue I’ve never really mastered?”

“Silly me. Of course, you’re right. Would you like me to get up and get the milk? Or, I know, perhaps you’d like me to blow on it for you?”

I snort back laughter, all my earlier unease relegated to history. “Blow you, more like.”

“Really? Right here and now?” Sam murmurs, his expression a mixture of innocence, hope, and just a dash of mischief. “I thought you wanted to talk about the spooks, but…”

“In your dreams, Curtis,” I interrupt, laughing even as I roll my eyes and shake my head. “Don’t forget I only said I’d… contemplate… forgiving you so, you know, don’t count your chickens before they’ve hatched. Besides…” Pausing, I smirk and glance at the still steaming cup of coffee. “My mouth is still so hot I think you’d be running the risk of third-degree…”

“Enough!” Groaning, Sam holds his hand up in surrender. “I apologise for making the coffee too hot and I’d promise to never do it again but, well, I’d probably only forget, so… What were we saying a moment ago about moving on?”

“Moving on it is,” I agree, settling myself against the arm of the sofa and looking at Sam in anticipation. “I take it you had to pretty much give them an alibi for Tuesday too, yeah? The prick I had, Harrison, looked as though he wanted to make the sign of the cross in my direction and offer me salvation for my sins when I told him we went back to my place together. Seriously. The way he looked down his, huge, I might add, nose at me made me think he wanted to go for a full body wash in antiseptic the second he could get away from me. Asshole. I’m not even entirely sure he’d have taken my word for it at all if not for Horvath stepping in and letting him know in no uncertain terms that he himself believed everything I’d said.”

Bringing the cup to his mouth, Sam takes another sip of coffee and, his expression clouding over, nods. “They wanted me to account for my whereabouts on Tuesday too,” he replies with a sigh. “Clarke, my half of the travelling spook show, was worse though. Instead of looking… aghast… at hearing we spent the night together he actually looked… interested…”

“So what you’re saying, huh, is I should do my best to avoid him should our paths unfortunately cross again, yeah?” I mutter, taken oddly aback by Sam’s statement and feeling quite unable to decide what would have been worse, the sneers and blatant homophobia, or feeling as though I was in danger of being propositioned. “MI6 sure know how to recruit the best of the rest, don’t they…”

“Years of practice, I suspect.” Falling silent and giving no indication of wanting to go on, Sam sighs again and gazes down at his cup.

Not wanting to lose the ground we’ve made, I reach out and place my hand lightly on Sam’s thigh. “I’m gathering something happened on Tuesday,” I prompt, knowing that I’m basically stating the obvious but, feeling as though a delicate touch is required here, not really caring. “Harrison the Homophobe wouldn’t tell me squat, so I’m kinda hoping your guy might have been a little more… forthcoming.”

“Oh, he told me,” Sam replies, his gaze slowly shifting to my hand as it rests on his leg. “I don’t think he wanted or planned to, but I refused to answer any questions and waved the wanting a lawyer card until he capitulated. A…” Another mouthful of coffee clearly steeling his resolve to continue, Sam lifts his head to face me and I’m alarmed by the sadness of his expression. “A body was found this morning and the preliminary word coming from the medical examiner assigned to the case is that he was murdered some time on Tuesday.”

“Don’t tell me, let me guess. Between midday and midnight,” I murmur, my curiosity yet again rising another notch. A dead body is bad under any circumstance, but what’s it got to do with the spooks? And, even more importantly, what’s it got to do with either Sam or myself?

“That’s right,” Sam confirms, his shoulders slumping as he returns his gaze to the coffee cup. “One shot to the back of the head, assassination style. The murderer was a pro too, leaving the central heating up high and closing all doors into the room to increase decomposition and make time of death harder to determine. Forensics haven’t been able to pick up anything. No fingerprints, no strands of hair… Nothing.”

As fascinating as what Sam’s just told me is, it still hasn’t answered any of the more pressing – ‘but what’s it got to do with us?’ – questions squabbling for domination in my head and I wonder what I’m going to have to say to just get him to come to the point already. “Curiouser and curiouser,” I reply, deciding the time has come to just be done with it, to go the sledgehammer route over the softly, softly one. “What’s any of it got to do with us or the spooks though?”

Standing up abruptly, Sam walks around the coffee table and goes to stand by the sliding door that leads out onto the balcony. “His name was Timothy Greenaway,” he responds, his voice quiet enough to cause me to get to my feet and walk over to join him so I can be sure that I’m hearing him correctly. “And he was a threat analyst expert for MI6.”

“So they’re worried that he may have been killed because of what he knew, or because the killer wanted information from him and they don’t know if Greenaway gave anything up before he died,” I murmur, the spooks’ interest in Tuesday finally making a long awaited degree of sense to me. “Fair enough. I get it now. Again though, what’s it got to do with us? If for whatever reason they’re wanting our help they sure as hell ain’t going the right way about getting it.”

“They don’t want our help,” Sam replies as he opens the sliding door and, despite the coolness of the late evening air and the fact he’s only wearing a thin shirt over his jeans, steps out onto the balcony. “We were questioned because I was a suspect and you were needed to vouch for my alibi.”

“A what? You were a suspect? Why? Why on earth would they suspect you of blowing a hole in the head of one of their pet analysts? ” Questions fly out of my mouth as, suddenly pleased that I never thought to take my jacket off, I march onto the balcony behind Sam. “I don’t get it. Did you even know the dead guy?”

Resting his arms on the ledge, Sam keeps his back to me and gazes out over the Thames. “I knew him,” he murmurs at last. “We’d been lovers.”

“Oh. Uh… I’m sorry.” Berating myself for the lameness of my response, I sink down into the nearest chair and rub my hands over my face. A MI6 agent who Sam once had a relationship has been murdered, possibly by a professional hit man… At least I get it now. I think.

“It was years ago,” Sam states matter-of-factly, directing his response to the river. “Three, to be exact. It only lasted a couple of months and came to a mutual end. Although we only saw each other infrequently, we remained friends… Caught up at Christmas, that sort of thing. He… He was a good bloke, you’d have liked him.”

“I’m sure I would have,” I reply, hesitating over going over to Sam like I instinctively want to or giving him the space his body language seems to be indicating he at least subconsciously wants. “I… I’m really sorry that your friend is dead and wish I had had a chance to meet him, but… I’m still not quite understanding why knowing him would cause you to come under suspicion for his murder.”

“Mine was the last number called from his phone and they had to follow it as though it was a valid lead,” Sam explains, his voice barely above that of a whisper. “He called to ask my advice on wine. It was coming up to the six month anniversary of his current relationship and, not being much fonder of it than you are, he wanted to know which champagne I’d recommend. We chatted for a while and… and it was good to catch up. We even spoke about finding time to meet up.” 

Not liking Sam’s obvious – for him, and to me at any rate – distress over the loss of his friend, I get to my feet and walk over to join him by the ledge. “I’m sorry,” I repeat, sliding my arm around his waist and pulling him closer until our sides are pressed together. “I can see now why the spooks were so interested in your whereabouts on Tuesday though. We would have followed the same lead. Have… Uh… Having removed you from their persons of interest list, have they got any other suspects?”

“If they have they didn’t mention it to me,” Sam murmurs, giving me a grateful look as some of the tension seems to leave his shoulders and he relaxes against me with a soft sigh. “Tim’s dead, no one knows why and there are no suspects. The spooks, mourning one of their own and fearful for the security of anything Tim had worked on, launched into the investigation feet first and are, I would think, still floundering. It’s just a mess.”

“Maybe, if we sell it to him as possessing a possible threat to national security, Horvath might let us look into it,” I suggest, thinking aloud. “If there’s any chance of us getting one over Six I’m sure he could be convinced to come on board.”

Looking surprised that I’d even suggest such a thing or, alternatively, why he hadn’t contemplated it already, Sam nods thoughtfully. “I don’t know what we’d be able to come up with that the combined forces of Six and the Met couldn’t, but… It’s definitely an idea to consider.”

“I see you’re still prone to over crediting the skills of the boys in blue,” I reply with a snort, my opinions on uniformed police officers – with whom I’ve had more than the occasional run in, all of course in the line of work, with over time -- the world over never having been anything worth writing home about. “Maybe we wouldn’t be able to come up with anything new, but that’s no reason not to have a go anyway. Besides, given that you knew the victim I’m sure you’d like to be keeping an eye on the investigation, so… What’s to lose, huh?”

“You’re right, you know,” Sam responds, gently pulling away so that he can stand fully facing me. “Even if we just wrangle it so the Agency is kept on the update list. Just… Knowing where the investigation was at would, I think, help. I’d at least feel as though I was doing something, however small, for Tim that way.”

Sensing for the first time that the murder of his one time lover has effected Sam more than he’s willing to let on to himself, let alone anyone else, I decide that there’s unlikely anything else to be achieved tonight by continuing along this line of conversation and that the time has come to attempt to lighten things up. “Of course you’d feel better if you could be involved in the investigation,” I retort, taking a step back and cocking my head to the side so I can better give him my best smug, knowing look. “What have I told you before about always being right, huh? I just don’t know why you struggle to accept what’s always staring you in the face.”

“Always right?” Looking amused, Sam smirks and mirrors my cocked head stance. “Dare I ask whatever gave you that fool idea?”

“I knew you’d come around after your… freak out… or whatever it was yesterday and that all I had to do was wait,” I reply, the words slipping out of my mouth and cutting too close to the bone before my mind has really grasped that I’m trying to lighten the moment, not sour it. “Uh… Shit! Sam, I…”

“It’s alright,” Sam interrupts, his expression giving away no hint of annoyance as he closes the distance between us and lightly trails his fingers down the side of my face. “About that… I know I touched on it earlier, but I really am sorry…”

My skin tingling at Sam’s familiar touch, I lean my face into his hand and mentally will him not to take it away. “I know,” I whisper. “I shouldn’t have…”

“Shhh… Let me finish, please…” Removing his hand from my cheek only to wrap his arms around me, Sam continues to speak as I slide my arms around his waist and only too happily return the warm embrace. “I want this, Chris, I do. It’s just… Sometimes I have difficulty believing that we’re back together like this, that the five years spent apart, regardless of the whys and the hows, never happened and… Sometimes I’m just afraid that it’s too easy, that we should have taken things slower…” Pausing, he hugs me a little tighter and plants a soft kiss on my forehead. “But then I realise how… lucky… I am, even if it does occasionally feel like it’s too much and I’m in above my head, and that if I know what’s good for me I should just accept what I have and… go with the flow.”

“Absolutely,” I agree, tilting my head back and, suddenly feeling as though I well and truly have far better things I could be doing with my time, capturing Sam’s lips with mine for a lingering kiss. Finding a way into MI6’s investigation in to Tim’s murder can wait, all my earlier unease has been relegated to the annuls of history, and… I feel good. Really good, in fact. “You know,” I murmur with a wink as I grab Sam’s hand and begin to pull him towards the door, “my mouth has finally cooled down from your scolding coffee, and, well, as you… are forgiven…”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Waking to an insistent hand shaking my shoulder and the instantly recognisable scent of hot coffee wafting under my nose, I reluctantly open my eyes and blearily blink at Sam as, beaming far too happily, he looms over me. “What?” I grunt, struggling into a sitting position and wondering what’s up with Sam to have clearly made him forget my dislike of mornings and general crabbiness at having been woken earlier than I would have liked. “Unless the apartment’s on fire…”

“Here.” Still smiling, Sam cuts me off mid-whine and shoves the cup of coffee at me. “You’ll be happy to know, taking into consideration the delicate constitution of your mouth, that I’ve made it with so much milk that it’s probably cold.”

“It’s the thought that counts,” I mutter, taking the coffee and yawning broadly. “What time is it, anyway?” I add, looking Sam up and down as he walks across the bedroom to open the drapes and noticing that he’s already dressed in a suit and giving every impression of being ready to walk straight out the door. “And why are you all dressed and looking as though you’re raring to go? I haven’t missed anything, have I? Have we been called in early?”

“Is there any particular question you’d like me to answer first?” Sam replies, his smile slipping slightly as he takes in the ominous grey clouds outside the window. “Damn. So much for hoping for a nice day. It looks like it’s getting ready to bucket down out there.”

Stifling another yawn, I take a cautious sip of coffee and, finding the temperature just right, toast Sam with the cup. “Perfect. Now, assuming you didn’t just wake me to share the news of it being another grey and dismal day in London, what gives? How long have you even been up for? I… Uh…” 

It suddenly dawning on me that I blithely declared to both Harrison and Horvath yesterday that I’m a light sleeper and would have woken up Tuesday night if Sam had so much as gotten up to go to the bathroom, I fall silent and feign complete and utter fascination with my coffee. It’s not that I doubt Sam. I don’t doubt his whereabouts that night for a second. It’s more that I suddenly have cause to doubt myself. I’ve always been so sure that I’d wake the instant anything so much as the slightest bit out of the ordinary happened. Now though… Well, as it’s obvious that Sam’s been up for a while now perhaps I’m wrong.

“What?” Sam demands, frowning as he returns to the bed and gingerly sits down on the mattress by my feet. “I can hear the cogs whirring from here, so you may as well just spill.”

“I…” Taking another mouthful of coffee to brace myself, I give a small shrug and smile wanly. “I didn’t hear you get up and it’s just that I kind of told Horvath and the spook yesterday that it takes next to nothing to wake me and, well, because of that I was confident of giving my word that you couldn’t have left Tuesday without…”

“And now you’re having doubts?” Sam interrupts, giving me a particularly sour look as he gets to his feet and begins to pick up clothes from the floor. “You’re not honestly saying you think…”

“No!” I exclaim, cutting Sam off as I place the coffee carefully on the bedside table before flinging the duvet back and swinging my legs over the edge of the mattress. Damn, damn, damn! Last night ended on such a – wonderfully – high note that I don’t want to ruin the memory by getting the day off to a bad start and wish I’d never opened my mouth. “It’s not like that all,” I continue hurriedly, padding over to Sam and lightly resting my hand on his shoulder. “I don’t… I never doubted your alibi and know you had nothing to do with Tim’s murder so, uh, please… It’s not you I’m doubting, it’s… me. It’s just that I would have thought that I’d have woken when you got up and…”

“Fool,” Sam murmurs with a reassuring degree of fondness as he gives my cheek a quick kiss and laughs at how confused I no doubt look. “While I have to say I’m glad it’s yourself you’re doubting and not me, I suppose I’d better put you out of your misery and tell you that you did actually wake up when I got up.”

This being about the last thing I expected to hear, I jerk back from Sam and stare at him in astonishment. If I woke up when Sam got out of bed I sure as hell don’t remember it. “I… did?”

“Uh-uh,” Sam replies, laughing. “You also muttered something expletive laden about there being no way it was time to get up, rolled over, and promptly resumed snoring.”

“Oh.” Believing Sam although I have no recollection whatsoever of being conscious enough to swear at him any time earlier this morning, I retrieve my cup of coffee from the bedside table and sink down onto the mattress. “Well, I’m glad that’s all cleared up then,” I mutter, shrugging. “I don’t remember it but as it sounds like something I’d do, I believe you. So… Yeah. Sorry for making you think I may have doubted you.”

Joining me in sitting on the edge of the bed, Sam smiles and pats my knee. “It’s okay. I’m sorry too for being touchy enough to immediately jump to the wrong conclusion. Now… Where we? Wasn’t I meant to be trying to work my way through the hundred and one questions you felt compelled to hit me?”

“I think you were,” I confirm, relieved that we appear to be back on an even standing and happily returning Sam’s smile with one of my own. “If I remember correctly I wanted to know what time it is, what you’re doing up and dressed already, and whether we were being dragged into the office early. Now, do you think you can handle that or do I need to slow things down and ask one question at a time?”

“It’ll stretch me, but I’ll give it a go,” Sam replies facetiously, pointing at the clock radio on the bedside table. “At the risk of stating the obvious here, however, I’d have thought you might have been able to work out the answer to the time question by yourself by now.”

Muttering, “Smart ass,” under my breath, I follow the line of Sam’s finger and groan when I read the time. It’s enough of an offence seeing this time of morning when I have to, let alone when – not usually being due in the office until around nine – there’s no reason to. “Six thirty? You’ve got to be freakin’ kidding me. It’s bad enough that I’m now awake at this Godforsaken time, but what about you, huh? How long have you been up for?”

“I got up just after five,” Sam responds, his expression darkening as he gazes down at his knees. “I couldn’t sleep anyway so I thought I may as well be up and doing something. Oh, and, no… We’re not due in the office or anything like that. Although… Uh… There is somewhere I’d like to visit before going into work though and…” Pausing, Sam shrugs and glances up at me. “You don’t have to, and I wouldn’t blame you if you choose not to, but I was hoping you might come with me.”

My concern for how uncharacteristically solemn and hesitant Sam’s suddenly become warring with my instinctive suspicion in regards to just what it is he’s planning, I meet his gaze and raise an eyebrow. “Should I be asking where or just doing the caring and sharing thing by saying that I’d love to without knowing what I’m getting myself in for?”

“It’s up to you.” Standing up, Sam picks invisible lint off the front of his suit jacket and directs the rest of his response to the wall above my head. “What you said last night… You’re right. I would like to be involved in some way in bringing Tim’s murderer to justice and I think I’ve come up with as good a place as any to start. His body is being autopsied at Guy’s Hospital and I’d like to go and speak to the Chief Pathologist handling the case. It’ll probably amount to nothing, but… It’s a start, and it might help me feel as though I’m doing something.”

“Guy’s Hospital… Isn’t that where…” The pieces, fragments of memories I never expected I’d have cause to call on again, suddenly falling into place, I stretch my foot out along the carpet and prod Sam’s shoe. “It is, isn’t it?”

“It is,” Sam confirms, looking down at me, a smile once again tugging on his lips. “And, what’s more, he’s now the Chief Pathologist.”

“Which means…”

“Uh-huh… He’s the one in charge of Tim’s body and the one we’d need to see.”

“Wonderful,” I mutter, holding my hand out towards Sam and waiting for him to take it. “I don’t suppose it could wait until the afternoon?” I add hopefully as he takes my hand and hauls me to my feet. “I mean, it’s bad enough that I’m awake at this time of morning without…”

“Sorry,” Sam interrupts, giving my hand a squeeze before giving me a push in the direction of the en suite. “He still favours the night shift and won’t be on duty this afternoon. If we want to see him we’ll have to get going shortly so we can catch him before he goes into his morning meeting.”

Coming to a stop by the bathroom door, I turn around and give Sam a wry look. “Why do I get the feeling you’ve got this all planned out?”

“You don’t have to come,” Sam replies just a tad coolly. “I’m perfectly capable of going by myself. I just thought you might be interested…”

“Of course I’ll come with you,” I state flashing a – ‘it’s okay, seriously. I surrender and beg your forgiveness for daring to make light of the situation’ – grin at Sam and backing it up with a casual shrug. “Chill. I’m just trying to get my head around the thought of seeing him again, that’s all. It’s all just, you know, a bit… unexpected.”

“Hmm…” Sam looks at me closely as though he’s trying to reassure himself that I do actually mean what I’m saying for a few seconds before, his mind apparently made up, beginning to walk towards the door. “If you really want to come with me, how about having a shower and getting ready while I put something together for breakfast. His morning meeting is at eight-thirty, so we really don’t have much time to waste.”

“Sounds good,” I murmur, already having adapted to the… treat… that awaits me and almost, in a warped, vaguely masochistic sort of way looking forward to it. “Hey, Sam,” I call out, causing him to pause in the doorway and glance over his shoulder towards me, “The King, huh? At least your friend is being looked after by the best.”

~*~

The King, thus nicknamed because of his initials. H. R. H. - His Royal Highness. Or, as he’s known to his parents, Henry Royce Heywood. Pathologist extraordinaire, renowned know-it-all on all subjects known to man and then some, and possibly just the tiniest bit as mad as a March hare. American too, not that that’s any excuse as I’ve met people who are barking mad from all corners of the globe, but it is why he’s always possessed a – rather alarming, in the early days – soft spot for me. Stranger in a strange land, ‘at last, a kindred spirit, someone with whom I can converse on all things baseball related with’. Or… Something like that anyway. 

Preferring basketball to baseball and never wanting to spend a moment longer with him than I had to, I can’t really say I ever understood his all too obvious fondness for me. Yes, I was an American who had found himself living in London and, yes, we had that in common, but that was about it as far as I’d always been able to see. Unlike the King I hardly ever made a song and dance over my nationality (and when I did it was usually only because the country of my birth was being the butt of one too many, be they meant in good humour or not, jibes) and I never saw any reason to draw attention to it. The King, on the other hand, either loved his nationality just a bid too much to be considered healthy or was firmly of the opinion that as his personality wasn’t such that he could ever consider successfully blending in with the natives anyway he may as well just embrace his ‘yank’ status for all it was worth.

The first time I ever met the King just happened to the fourth of July. I’d only been in London a couple of months myself and while I’d heard the King’s name mentioned – even then, ten years ago, he was considered a legend – here and there I’d never really thought anything of him. From what I’d gathered he was brilliant at his job but, to quote a Metropolitan Police Officer who’d been only too happy to shoot his mouth off at a crime scene, ‘as nutty as a fruitcake’. If anything, I didn’t want to meet him. God knows it was bad enough being viewed as just another ‘obnoxious American’ as it was without knowing a fellow countryman was the laughing stock of just about everyone who worked for the Home Office. Fate, of course, had other ideas though and I first, all the time focussing more on whether I was about to be the victim of a hilarious-to-some practical joke than on the actual victim whose case we were working, followed Sam into the King’s morgue on American Independence Day. 

To this day I still cringe when I think about it. Not only was he wearing a lab coat emblazoned with the Stars and Stripes, but he was also wearing one of those ‘Uncle Sam’ top hat things and had hot dogs cooking next to the table containing the contents of the victim’s stomach. Then there were the red, white and blue balloons and streamers all over the place and the six foot replica of the Statue of Liberty at the head of the autopsy table. It was just so over the top – and out of place – that I kept expecting to see a nurse wearing a Mickey Mouse costume pop out of nowhere just to complete the Alice-down-the rabbit-hole picture. Mickey never materialised, but worse was yet to come when the King heard my accent and bounded up to me like an over-excited puppy. I thought Sam was at risk of exploding he was trying so hard to keep from laughing when the mad pathologist, complete with bloody gloved hands, tried to give me a bear hug. It was just… insane. One of those moments that if you hadn’t been a part of you never would have believed actually happened.

I was mortified, Sam was only saved from cracking up by his innate British ability to remain po-faced under duress, and the King – upon hearing my accent and immediately experiencing rose tinted flashbacks of his homeland – thought his new best friend had just walked into his morgue. Still being super-sensitive to all things death related and all the time trying to fight how the smell reminded me of having to identify all the bodies after the wedding, I was far from operating at my best and the whole dead bodies plus freak show plus feeling as though I was being set up, it… It was all just too much for me and I lost it. I ranted and raved about how Sam had done this to me deliberately and how I didn’t think it was funny and generally just threw an over-emotional temper tantrum. The King, quickly siding with me because he’d had his own run ins with Brits making fun of his nationality, then turned on Sam and gave him a lecture of his own and, again, it really was just insane. By the time we’d all calmed down Sam was red in the face and looking as though he wanted to – never see me again – bolt for the nearest exit, the King was offering me a root beer from his own private stash in one of the refrigerator bays usually reserved for preserving a dead body, and, feeling sheepish for having made such a scene by this stage, I was simply wishing I’d never bothered to get out of bed.

It was, to put it plainly, a meeting to remember. It was also, however, a case of all’s well that ended well. Suitably placated by a root beer and a Hershey bar, I saw through the King’s over-the-top love of all things American and accepted that he was – eccentric as fuck, but harmless and oddly endearing – intelligent and good at his job and, better still, Sam was so ashamed of not having done a better job of explaining the King to me, his babe-in-the-woods partner who, regardless of not having particularly wanted one he nonetheless felt responsible for, that he took me out for lunch afterwards. It wasn’t a great beginning, and I still wish I’d handled it better to this very day, but everything worked out well enough in the end. 

Over time I adapted to the King’s – numerous – personality quirks and we became if not actual friends then certainly quite good acquaintances and if not for the reason behind our visits I would have found myself looking forward to calling in on him. Only needing his services when there was a body involved though always managed to take the edge off it though and part of me always regretted not having made the effort to try and see him outside of the work environment. 

All my memories of the King filling my head as clearly as if they’d only taken place last week instead of between ten and five years ago, I bite back a sigh and note by the landmarks that we’re probably only eight or so minutes away from Guy’s Hospital. As fond as I grew of the King, I’m more than just a little reluctant to be seeing him again and hope my unease isn’t showing on my face. I like him, he’s always liked me – and if Sam’s thoughts on the subject are to be believed, perhaps he liked me just a bit too much and in ways I was never interested in acknowledging – but… 

As with everyone else I knew in London I left his friendship without a word of farewell or hint of explanation and for five whole years haven’t spared him so much as a second’s thought. If things don’t go as hoped – my surprise return from the wilderness providing enough of a delightful distraction to allow Sam to convince him it’s perfectly okay for us to be poking around in Tim’s file – then I honestly don’t know what’s likely to happen. Should the King be unimpressed at seeing me again – not, incidentally, that I’d be able to hold this reaction against him – then, yeah… Things could turn… interesting… very quickly. It’s not that I don’t want to see him, more that if given a choice I would have preferred it to have been different, less ‘yes, yes, it’s good to see you, now why I’m really here is because I want something from you’ and more ‘hey, how are you? I was just in the area and thought I’d drop in to say hi’. What’s done is done however and, to help Sam’s need to look into his friend’s murder, I’ll play my part and just hope for the best. While it’s far easier said than done, there’s really no point in worrying about it at all.

“Stop looking so… pensive,” Sam comments, bringing the car to a smooth stop at a red light just as the thirty-four storey Guy’s Tower looms on the horizon. “It’ll be fine. For reasons quite unknown the King has always viewed you with nothing but, okay, albeit some times creepy, affection, and I’m sure he will welcome your return with open arms and offers of hideous American chocolate. He won’t, and I’m equally as sure of this, chase you out of the autopsy suite brandishing a Stryker saw and expressing a very vocal wish to chop you up into many small parts.”

“Anyone ever tell you that you really do have a way with words?” I mutter, lowering my sunglasses along the bridge of my nose so I can glower at Sam over the top of them. “I mean, thanks to your kind… no doubt meant to be reassuring… words, I’m now being assailed by mental images of the King chasing me through the hospital waving a bloody saw. Just… Hell, as if my own concerns weren’t great enough you just have to go and add that scenario to them.”

“You’ll be fine,” Sam replies with a smirk. “Even if we do catch him in a bad mood he’ll find a way to blame me for your disappearing act and will forgive you instantly. You, after all, can do no wrong in his stars and stripes tinted vision.”

“I’ll try to remember that when he’s coming at me with the saw, shall I?” I retort, pushing my glasses back up and scrunching down in my seat as the light turns green and we’re once again on our way. “Besides, you are to blame for my disappearing act,” I add, knowing that I may be straying onto thin ice but – for no specific reason, mind you – feeling the urge to go there anyway. “So it’s not like he’d be wrong if he decides to lay blame squarely at your feet and, hey, if turning on you with the saw leaves me smelling of roses I’m all for it.”

“Well, exactly,” Sam responds, any shock or annoyance he may be feeling at my out of left field response being hidden by a quick glance over at me and a smile. “It would, you might say, even be fair, divine retribution if you like. Again, however, I really am quite sure it won’t come to any of this and will prove to be a complete non event. He’ll be all over you like usual, like the past five years never took place, and that will be just that.”

“I just hope you’re right,” I murmur, flashing Sam a smile as he drives into the hospital parking lot and slots the Audi neatly into a park designated for the police. “You know, I hadn’t even thought of the King until this morning when you mentioned this place, but I think I may just be beginning to look forward to seeing him again. God knows all our visits here in the past always left us with a story or two to tell.”

Turning the engine off, Sam pulls the key out and opens the door. “Chris, I…” Frowning, he climbs out of the car and waits until I’ve joined him on the concrete before continuing. “I just want to thank you for doing this for me,” he states quietly, keeping his attention focused on the entrance to the hospital in preference to actually facing me. “I know, all jokes aside, that you’d prefer to be meeting the King again under different circumstances, so… Putting yourself out like this, I… uh… I really appreciate it.”

“It’s nothing, seriously.” Walking around the front of the car, I place my hand on Sam’s arm and give it a quick squeeze. “Tim, he meant a lot to you, didn’t he.” I say this as a statement, not as a coded request for Sam to tell me more about their relationship. I don’t pose it as a question because there’s no point, I know it’s true. Sam’s behaviour, the lapsing into silence and not wanting to elaborate, gives it away. While I’d be lying if I didn’t profess to experiencing a mild dose of curiosity in respect to their history, I’m not jealous – the past is just that. The reasons behind our break up, everything that followed, it’s all history – and have no plans to push him on the topic. I just want him to know that I know, that’s all.

Pulling his arm away from my hand, Sam doesn’t look at me and begins to walk towards the hospital. “He reminded me a lot of you,” he replies in a tone of voice that doesn’t invite further comment as, reaching the front door, he holds it open and gestures me inside. On the off chance I didn’t get the hint from his voice, his stony expression further reiterates the fact that no more is going to be said on the subject and that I’d do well to focus my attention elsewhere.

Wanting to quickly put Sam’s mind at ease, I grin, pull my ID out of my pocket and begin to stride towards the reception desk. “Let’s get this show on the road.”

A display of dimples and our Agency credentials getting us past the still-half-asleep-looking receptionist, it takes less than a minute for us to be walking through the heavy double doors into the restricted access area and taking the lift down to the morgue. As the lift door slide open onto the cold, uniformly grey area that the average person hopes to never have to find themselves and which doesn’t appear to have changed since the last time I was here, I tense up in anticipation of what’s to come and say a silent prayer under my breath for everything to go smoothly.

“May I help you?” The morgue receptionist, a woman in her fifties with steel grey hair scraped back into an unbecoming bun and who clearly doesn’t have anyone in her life who cares enough about her to let her know frosted pink lipstick well and truly doesn’t suit her thin lips, stares at us coldly as we walk out of the lift. “Do you have an appointment?” she demands, tapping officiously on the keyboard of her computer as, sharing a look of dismay with each other, we begin to make our way towards the desk.

“Don’t think the dimples are going to work on this one,” Sam whispers, surreptitiously elbowing me in the side so that, stumbling and subsequently crashing into it, I reach the desk first.

“Good morning.” Despite knowing I’m wasting my energy, I beam at the woman – who upon closer, unfortunate, inspection is wearing a name badge declaring her as Cheryl – and place my ID on the desk. “We’re from the Agency and…”

“The Agency?” Cheryl interrupts, giving me a truly malevolent look as she snatches up the ID and peers at it closely. “As I’ve never heard of it I’m going to have to ask you both to…”

“Just because you’ve never heard of it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist,” I respond lightly, talking over the top of her and trying again to appeal to her better nature – not that I hold out much hope of it actually existing – with a friendly smile. “We’re new. G.I.L.E.A. Global Intelligence and Law Enforcement Agency. Commonly known as the Agency because our full title is such a mouthful.”

“I’ve still not heard of it,” Cheryl sniffs, staring at my ID like a gem expert inspecting the clarity of a diamond. “While you may indeed be from the… Agency… as you do not have an appointment I’m going to have to…”

Tired of this game even though it’s only just begun, I grab my ID out of her hands and shove it back into my pocket. “We’re here to see the King,” I state, not bothering with a smile this time and meeting her glare with one of my own. “If you would just so kindly inform him that Chris Keel and…”

“Doctor Heywood is preparing for his morning meeting and is not available to visitors,” Cheryl replies, once again choosing to talk over the top of me in lieu of letting me finish as, believing the exchange finished, she returns her attention to the computer. “If you would like to make an appointment I’m sure the doctor would be able to see you at a more convenient time.” 

“Convenient for who,” I mutter under my breath, taking a step back from the desk and, once I can see that Sam is watching me, glancing in the direction of the door that leads into the morgue proper. “Your turn, I think.”

Nodding, Sam steps up to the desk. “Cheryl… Now, I may call you Cheryl?” he murmurs politely, the very embodiment of exquisite manners and attentiveness. “My name is Sam Curtis and…”

Mentally congratulating Sam for at the very least softening Cheryl’s suspicious, haughty expression, I tune out the sound of their conversation and casually make my way towards the door. I’ve only just reached out to push the door open when eagle-eyed Cheryl spots me and sounds the alarm by letting out an indignant shriek.

“You! You can’t go in there!” she huffs and puffs, going red in the face as, shrugging, Sam makes his way over to join me. “I’m calling security!”

“You’re slipping,” I comment, placing my hand flat on the door and pushing it open. “I would have thought you’d have been able to have her eating out of the palm of your hand.”

“I suspect if I’d put my hand anywhere near her she’d have bitten straight through it,” Sam retorts, glancing over his shoulder and shuddering. “Come on. Let’s go and see if we can find the…”

“Oh my Lord! As I live and breathe, if it isn’t the long lost Christopher!” a booming, instantly recognisable voice suddenly announces from the doorway of an office to our left. “I would say back from the dead, but you’re looking far too healthy for that.”

“Looks like we’ve found him,” I whisper, plastering on a smile as I turn to face the King. “King!” I exclaim, resigning myself to the fact that I’m about to get bear hugged and, wanting to get it over and done with, striding towards him. Like the morgue’s reception area, the King hasn’t changed since I last saw him and he still looks like Stephen Fry’s long lost twin brother. Tall, a little overweight, floppy, greying brown hair, flushed cheeks – a large man who always manages to command the attention of all around him. “Long time, no see.”

“It’s been far too long,” the King replies, grabbing me for the inevitable hug and burying my face in his tie decorated with a photograph of New York’s Chrysler Building. “And Samuel too, I see. I should have known this wasn’t a social call.” Releasing me, he claps me on the back and smiles with obvious delight. “Still, whatever the reason it’s good to see you both again. It really has been far, far too long.”

“It has,” I agree, wondering how we’re going to easily get on to the real reason behind our visit and looking to Sam for help. “I hear you’re Chief of Pathology now,” I continue, frowning at Sam as he tilts his head towards the doorway we just entered through. “Uh… Congratulations. You must be very…”

“The cavalry is coming,” Sam interjects, tapping me on the arm and, with an apologetic smile for the King’s benefit, nodding in the direction of the door. “Sadly she really mustn’t have warmed to us at all.”

His smile slipping, the King looks from me to Sam and then finally towards the door as the sound of boot-clad feet marching our way reaches his ears. “Pardon? Surely you are not… on the run… and requiring refuge?”

“No, no. Not at all,” I reply with an easy shrug, amused as always by the King’s quaint use of the English language. As American as he is, and as pronounced as his accent is, he’s always spoken ‘English’ more properly than most of the born-and-bred natives I’ve met and it’s just… incongruous, to say the very least. “The lipsticked pit bull you keep on reception out there took offence to us daring to ask to see you without an appointment and has called security. As you can hear, they’re en route to save you as we speak.”

Snorting, the King draws himself up to his full, quite considerable height and gestures Sam and I towards his office. “We’ll see about that,” he mutters, stalking towards the doorway. “Cheryl! A word!”

“Our saviour,” Sam comments drily as, clearly on a mission, the King strides through the doors and disappears. “Come on. We may as well take a seat while we wait for him to return.”

Stepping into the office, I settle down in the visitor’s chair furthest away from the door while Sam takes the one closest. Having another, more private and respectfully decorated, room to see members of the public in, where we’re sitting is in the King’s office, his inner sanctum, and it very much looks like it. What was probably once half a rainforest worth of paper is strewn all over the desk and a laptop computer, complete with a Disneyland mug sitting on top of it, teeters precariously close to the edge. Framed photos of American landmarks – Empire State Building, Mount Rushmore, the White House – are scattered haphazardly on the walls along with certificates proclaiming his many qualifications and commendations and, just for the icing on the cake, a pair of Mickey Mouse ears take pride of place on top of the filing cabinet. 

“I think he seems pleased to see us,” I murmur to Sam as, looking appalled at the mess he’s found himself surrounded by, he gazes around the office. “No sign of the Stryker saw at any rate.”

“Told you it would be all right,” Sam replies, swiftly catching a piece of paper from the desk as, completely of its own volition, it started to slide towards the floor. “You know, all this would need is an empty pizza box or five and I could be mistaken for thinking I was in the middle of your living room.”

“Ha!” Affecting a hurt expression, I fold my arms across my chest and pout. “It’s called… lived in. Not that you’d even know the meaning of it, Mr Hit-The-Panic-Button-The-Second-You-See-A-Cup-Where-It-Shouldn’t-Be. I think it looks…”

“Like a bomb’s hit it,” the King finishes cheerfully as, having finished reading the riot act to Cheryl, he walks into the office and pulls the door shut behind him. “And, what’s more, I wouldn’t have it any other way. While you may not believe me, I actually know where everything is as well. Cheryl, however, refuses to come in here and that too I wouldn’t have any other way.”

“Well… Whatever works, I suppose,” Sam replies, the words out of his mouth saying one thing while his doubtful expression says something else entirely different. “I must thank you for seeing us without an appointment,” he continues as the King sinks down in his chair and takes a slurp out of whatever it is in the Disneyland cup. “It really is must… obliging… of you.”

“Poppycock!” Banging his cup down on his desk to emphasise his point, the King fixes Sam with a look before turning to me and grinning. “Prone though you both may be to disappearing without so much as a word or Christmas card, you know that my door is always open and I must insist you drop this… polite, simperingly grateful… act immediately. Samuel, I know you’re an expert at it and that you do it both with good intentions and instinctively, but I did not come down in the last shower and insist you merely treat me as a friend.”

“I…” Clearly taken aback by the King’s outburst, Sam blinks at him and generally comes across as a stunned mullet.

“Now, now, Samuel. There’s no need for the cat to be holding your tongue,” the King chuckles, looking at me and winking. “I meant it all with the greatest affection and really am only too happy to assist you both in any way that I can. Now… Christopher. Seeing the pair of you together again like this, am I correct in thinking you have joined Samuel at S.O.C.A.?”

“The Serious Organised Crime Agency? God no,” I respond, shaking my head as, looking relieved at no longer being the centre of attention, Sam relaxes back in his seat. “A little too… local… for my liking. We’re currently working for the Agency. The offer came at an opportune time as I’d just decided to return to London after living in the States for the past five years and… Well… Here we are again.”

Nodding, the King takes another sip out of his cup, grimaces, and puts it back on the desk behind a large hardback reference book which looks to me to be about as old as the hospital’s original buildings. “Indeed. It’s as though nothing other than the name on your ID badges have changed,” he murmurs, glancing at Sam and I with a knowing smile tugging on his lips. “So, the Agency, yes? How marvellous to be part of something so very big and so very powerful from the beginning. I must confess however that I was secretly rooting for ‘Service’ to beat off ‘Agency’ when the name was still being heatedly debated. Could you imagine it? Your acronym would have then been G.I.L.E.S., GILES! Would that not have been hysterical? The Global Intelligence and Law Enforcement Service, the big new noise on the world stage, otherwise known as GILES! Seriously. It just would have been too funny.”

“Hysterical,” I mutter, keeping to myself that I still think the name and acronym is pretty wanky and how thankful I am that the general consensus is that we can simply be known as the ‘Agency’. “I’m pleased to see your sense of humour, such as it is, hasn’t changed.”

“Given the profession I have chosen for myself,” the King replies, gesturing expansively around his office, “is it wrong for me to find a little merriment when and where I can? But… Let us not bother ourselves with such trifles as the name of your organisation. Come… As I am sure Samuel here is chomping at the bit to get to the purpose of your visit, please… Tell me how it is I can help you.” 

“We understand a body was brought in yesterday,” Sam responds, looking pleased that the small talk appears to be finally out of the way. “That of a Timothy Greenaway.”

The King nods and opens up his laptop and taps the touch pad into life. “The spook,” he states matter-of-factly, looking over the top of the screen and frowning. “Is the Agency overseeing the case?”

“Uh… Not exactly. We’re…”

Silencing me by lightly touching my arm, Sam gives a slight shake of his head and, almost in a show of defiance, meets the King’s concerned gaze. “I knew him. We were friends. Briefly, although it was years ago and irrelevant to the case, lovers.”

“Oh.” Glancing down at the laptop, the King uses the touch pad to bring something up on the screen that causes a look of shock to fleetingly cross his face. “I can’t believe I missed the similarities before,” he muses as, suddenly looking as though he’d like to be elsewhere, Sam begins to indulge in his favourite avoidance routine of picking invisible lint from his trousers. “He really does look quite a bit like…” Leaving the rest unsaid, he smiles softly and shrugs. “Never mind. The poor man’s death is quite the conundrum and I see no reason why I cannot discuss it with two fine upstanding agents like yourself. I hope, however, Samuel that you have no wish to view the body as, and I’m truly sorry to have to say this, it really is not something I would recommend.”

“I don’t want to see the… uh… Tim’s body,” Sam replies, looking tired all of a sudden as he finishes brushing his hands along his thighs and wearily lifts his head to face the King. “I’ll get the opportunity to pay my last respects at the funeral. For now I’d just appreciate it if you could share what you know about the case with us. We’re not here officially though and I just want you to know this in case anything comes up about our being here in the future.”

“You’re both law enforcement agents from a respected agency, the Agency, even,” the King responds, swivelling the laptop around on the desk and sending pieces of paper skittering everywhere in the process. “Allowing you to see what little I’ve so far been able to discover contravenes no laws that I’m aware of.” Pausing he brings up a screen of thumbnails of crime screen photographs and sets the slideshow running. “I hate to say this though, and that’s that there really isn’t a lot I can tell you. Death was instantaneous from a shot to the back of the head. A silencer and common 9mm ammunition was used. Ballistics is still running the bullet to see if the gun has been used in any other crimes but I’m really not holding my breath on that account. Every thing from the cold bloodedness of the kill to the complete lack of evidence left at the scene points to a professional hit. Forensics haven’t been able to come up with so much as a strand of hair or fingerprint. The front door was found unlocked, so we’re assuming the killer entered that way, perhaps was even willingly let in. There were no signs of a struggle. The victim was sitting at the dining table with his laptop in front of him when he was shot, as you can see from the photographs here.”

“He’d redecorated since I’d last been there,” Sam murmurs, directing his comment at no one as he studies the photos sliding slowly past on the computer screen. “Looks like his taste was still good though. Just look at the…” His voice catching in his throat, Sam blinks and appears to be in the process of looking away when something grabs his attention. “What’s that?” he queries, reaching out across the desk and pulling the laptop closer so he can stop the slideshow on a close up photo of the victim’s left arm draped lifelessly across the dining table. “That’s not Tim’s watch.”

His eyebrows twitching with immediate interest, the King leans across the desk and quickly enlarges the photo so that the watch fills the screen. “You sound certain,” he states as, regardless of not knowing what it is I’m supposed to be seeing, I stand up so I can get a better look at the picture. “May I ask why?”

“It’s not his watch,” Sam repeats, tapping the screen with his finger and looking increasingly agitated. “Tim wore a nineteen thirty-eight Prince model Rolex, one of the rarer ones known as a ‘doctor’s’ watch because of the inclusion of a really clear second hand on the dial. His grandfather had been given it brand new on his eighteenth birthday and it was passed down to Tim on his death. He always wore it, regardless of the situation. Being worth quite a bit of money, I asked him once why he didn’t keep it in a safe and only wear it for special occasions and he said that he liked to be able to see it every day, that it reminded him of his grandfather and, well, basically what was the point of having something nice if you just kept it locked away in a safe and hardly ever saw it… I’m telling you, whatever he’s wearing on his wrist isn’t his watch.”

“It’s a Casio,” the King mumbles, talking down at the piece of paper grabbed from a random pile on which he’s now hastily scribbling notes. “Some digital, allegedly retro thing. Cheap, sold in the thousands from Amazon UK, to name only one of the hardly salubrious retailers we’ve been able to track down who stock them.” Pausing, he lowers the pen and looks across at Sam. “When was the last time you saw the victim? For all you know he could have changed his mind and the watch could be securely hidden away in a safe.” 

“I last saw Tim six months ago,” Sam responds, looking miffed at having the veracity of his tale doubted. “We met for drinks in the city and he was wearing the watch. I remember this clearly because some wanker of a cashed-up lawyer saw it and tried to buy it from him. It was only a quick flash of my S.O.C.A. badge that got it through his thick skull that no meant no and that Tim really wasn’t interested.” Noticing that the King is once again taking notes, Sam shakes his head and adds, “I wouldn’t get too excited at labelling him a suspect. He was a prat, but he was legit. Had the cash on him and could have paid on the spot. In the end, one of his mates Googled the watch on his iPhone and they went off to see if they could fine one online.”

“It’s still worth taking a note of,” the King replies absentmindedly as he finishes what he’s writing and glances at the computer screen. “The bank hasn’t come through with Greenaway’s financials yet. Perhaps he was experiencing financial difficulties and had to sell the watch. That could explain the Casio on his wrist.”

“He’d never sell it,” Sam states adamantly as, sensing his growing impatience over not being able to get what he firmly believes to be the truth through to the King, I place my hand gently on his shoulder for a couple of seconds before returning to my chair and sitting down. “His parents both died last year and as there’s only Tim and his brother they inherited their entire, quite substantial, estate between them. Money wasn’t an issue, and even if it was he’d still never sell the watch.” Brightening as a thought suddenly comes to him, Sam once again reaches out his hand and taps his finger on the screen. “I think I know how to prove it too. I bet if you compare the Casio to the tan line on Tim’s arm you’ll see that it’s a completely different size and shape. Summer’s not long gone and Tim liked to get outdoors as often as he could, so I would think the shape of the Rolex should still be able to be readily made out on his arm.”

Impressed with Sam’s thinking, I look over at the King and see him drawing asterisks around what he’s just written, highlighting it. “Sounds worth checking out to me,” I interject. “This whole watch thing, it’s something new for you to look into if nothing else.”

“Perhaps the killer took it,” the King offers, playing devil’s advocate not because he wants to further push Sam’s buttons but because the importance of the report he’s going to have to write up on Tim’s death dictates it. “If the Rolex is as desirable as you’re implying it is, Samuel, maybe what you’ve brought to our attention here is simply a case of common theft.”

Sighing, Sam leans back in his seat and runs his fingers through his hair. “I’d buy that,” he replies, “if not for the oddness of the cheap and nasty Casio. Just… What’s all that about? By all means, take the Rolex as a bonus. I’d probably even think about it myself. But to replace it with another watch? Where’s the sense in that?”

“Where’s the sense in murder, period?” I murmur, echoing Sam’s sigh with one of my own as I fail to make any sense of the issue of the watch at all. Theft, I get, but Sam’s right, putting a different watch in its place doesn’t make any sense. “You mentioned a brother a moment ago, yeah? Perhaps for the sake of crossing the T’s and dotting the I’s and all that someone could give him a call and just ask about the watch, you know, confirm once and for all that it should have been on Tim’s arm and not in a safe somewhere.”

“As it’s been raised now it’s definitely a point we’ll need to pursue,” the King agrees, pulling the laptop towards him. “The brother’s name is Richard and I’m getting his details up now. Having got me curious now, I’ll just give him a call now and see if I can’t get to the bottom of…”

“Just give me the number and I’ll call.” Standing up, Sam gets his phone out of his pocket and hold his hand out to the King, his expression one of resigned determination. “I’ve met him a couple of times and hearing a familiar voice might be easier… for him.”

Nodding, the King jots the number down on a piece of paper and hands it to Sam. “If you’d like some privacy the office next to mine is currently empty.”

“Thanks.” Taking the number, Sam opens the door and leaves the office.

After watching Sam’s back disappear from sight, I swivel around to face the King and find him looking back at me over steepled fingers, his expression one of barely contained delighted. “Alone at last,” he announces, closing the laptop screen and smiling. The shock – ‘what the fuck?’ – this peculiar to say the least statement installs in me must show on my face because, holding up his left hand so I can see the simple band of gold adorning his ring finger, he quickly adds, “No, no! My apologies. That came out wrong. Besides, you’re perfect safe with me, Christopher, my dear, I’m spoken for.”

“Oh?” Dear God, what am I supposed to say here? Sorry that I jumped to the wrong conclusion and looked appalled at the thought of you wanting something I didn’t have on offer? It’s not you, it’s me? Sam always had you pegged as having… ideas? “Uh… Congratulations,” I murmur, trying to disguise the lameness of my response with a – hopefully more hesitant than relieved – grin. “Married?”

“Committed,” the King replies, his smile broadening with obvious happiness as he lowers his hands to the desk. “We’ve been together for near on three years now. It’s all very grown up and civilised. Live together, share parenting rights to two incredibly spoilt Siamese, Rhett and Scarlet, know how to both start and end an argument instantly. His name’s David and he’s a far better cook than I could ever be. I know!” Although it should really be impossible, his expression brightens even further. “We should have the pair of you over for dinner one night. Scarlet recognises someone who cares for their clothing more than they care for felines the second she sees them and would be all over Samuel. It would, I’m telling you, be a very entertaining evening.”

“I’m sure it would be,” I reply, keeping half an eye on the door to watch, not because I’m uncomfortable in the King’s company but because I want to know how he’s got on with Tim’s brother, for Sam’s return. “Uh… It also sounds like a pretty good idea and we should definitely try to tee it up some time.” Telling myself that I have to focus, that the King deserves more of my attention than I’m giving him, I lean forward and smile encouragingly. “So, your David, is he American?”

“Canadian. Next best thing. And phone sex in French is way hotter…”

“Enough! I’ll take your word for it.”

“Are you sure? My accent is perfectly horrid, but I could try to…”

“I’m sure. Really, really sure. Thank you all the same.”

“You don’t know what you’re missing out on.”

“And yet I’m fairly confident I’ll survive.” Laughing, I look across the desk at the King and, seeing a friend looking back at me with an expression of amused affection on his face, suddenly blurt out the first thing that pops into my head. “I’m sorry for leaving like I did. I left without a word to anyone and just dropped off the radar. It… It was wrong of me and if I could have the time over again I’d do things differently. You… So many people, deserved better and I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” the King replies kindly as he catches my gaze with his and slowly shakes his head. “You merely did what you felt you had to do at the time. Hindsight may tell you differently but it doesn’t matter. You left because you felt you had to. I may not be able to say I understand, but I certainly don’t hold it against you. Besides, you’re back for good now, are you not?”

Grateful to the King for not making a big deal out of either my apology or sudden reappearance, I nod. “That’s the plan. I hadn’t realised how much I had missed London and the life I’d made here until I came back for Malone’s funeral in June, then… Then it all just hit me and I decided that, regardless of all the bridges I needed to mend, I wanted to come back.” That, and I was whacked with all the force of a wrecking ball with the fact that, all our issues and past problems aside, I still loved Sam and couldn’t deny how much I preferred my life when he was a part of it. I suspect, however, that the King knows this already without me having to say it. “So, yeah… Here I am. Older and working for a new agency, but other than that it’s basically a case of… same bat time, same bat channel.”

“And you’ll get no complaints from me for that,” the King responds as, with his usual quite immaculate timing, Sam walks back into the office. “Ah, Samuel! Were you successful in your quest to contact Richard Greenaway?”

“Richard was as surprised as I was about the watch.” His expression solemn, Sam sighs and sinks down in the chair. “As far as he was concerned the Rolex should have been on Tim’s wrist. They were together Saturday, having gone to visit an old aunt in a Croydon nursing home, and he says Tim was wearing the watch then.”

“He had nothing to say about the Casio?” I prompt as the King picks up his pen and ferrets through the mess on his desk until he finds the paper he’d been writing on earlier.

“Only that Tim had always hated digital watches and wouldn’t be caught dead…” Realising what he’d been about to say, Sam falls silent and rubs his hands over his face. “It’s just… off. If the killer stole the watch then so be it. There’s nothing remarkable about that at all. Putting the Casio on his wrist though, that’s just… Hell! I don’t know what it is. A sign? A calling card? Some sort of twisted joke?”

Looking up from his note taking, the King frowns. “Whatever it is it’s worth looking into. I’ll have the Scene of Crime Officers go back over his place and look for the watch so we can rule out it having been simply taken off and put somewhere by the victim. I’ll also put the word out that I’m looking for any… similar… cases involving watches seemingly being replaced.”

“I’m afraid it will have to wait until after your meeting,” Cheryl intones glacially as, with a degree of stealth even Horvath would have to admire, she materialises in the doorway and stalks into the office. “Doctor Heywood,” she continues, giving Sam and I a look that’s even colder than her voice as she places a folder on the desk, “the meeting is in less than five minutes and you need to familiarise yourself with today’s cases. I really must insist you…”

“Yes, yes.” Gesturing Cheryl away with an impatient wave of his hand, the King puts his pen and gets up with a sigh. “Christopher. Samuel. I really hate to cut our discussion short but Cheryl is unfortunately right. If I do not come to meetings fully prepared the fresh-from-university-and-believing-they-know-everything minions become restless.”

“We should be going ourselves anyway,” I reply, standing up and moving towards the door as Sam does the same. “Thanks for seeing us and if you could let us know if you come up with anything that would be great.”

“Mmm… Thank you,” Sam murmurs with a wan smile that even manages to elicit a vague look of concern from the Ice Maiden, Cheryl. “It was very kind of you to see us without an appointment.”

“Nonsense. Rest assured I will always have time in my busy schedule for the pair of you and you have my word that I will make contact the instant I come up with anything.” Scowling at the folder Cheryl had placed on the desk, the King sits back down and flips it open. “Oh, and Christopher? Please do give some consideration to the offer of a dinner date.”

“I’ll do that.” His conversation with Richard Greenaway obviously having done something of a number on him, Sam gives no indication of having heard, let alone being curious – or even concerned – about what the King is talking about and he walks out of the office without another word. “It really was great seeing you again, King,” I state over my shoulder as I hurry after Sam, “and, thanks again. I’m sure we’ll be seeing you one way or another shortly.”

If the Kings replies I don’t hear it as, no doubt overjoyed at our departure, Cheryl, her expression as triumphant as any cartoon villainess, swiftly pulls the office door closed with a none-too-soft bang.

“Old bat,” I mutter, getting in step with Sam and gently giving him a nudge in the side with my elbow. “Hey, what’s up, huh? Was talking to the brother bad?”

Hitting the button to call the elevator down, Sam shrugs wearily and sighs. “It was more… hard, than bad,” he replies. “Not knowing how to get out of it, I’m meeting him for a drink tonight to… talk, I suppose. We’ve arranged to meet at a bar at Canary Wharf, so… I’ll take you back to mine after we’ve finished in the office and you can pick up your car there, yeah?”

Although I hope it’s unintentional, I can’t help but feel a slight sense of… dismissal… at Sam’s plans and try to hide my hurt behind an airy shrug and easy smile. “Sounds fine to me.”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

“Did you ever meet him?” I ask Backup, cradling the phone between my cheek and shoulder as I lean forward to tighten my shoelace. Although I’m dressed for a run and had in fact had every intention – all in the name of being completely unable to think of anything better to do with my time – of actually following through with it, Backup calling my mobile just as I was pulling my back door shut saved me and I’m now sitting on a park bench in the cemetery just enjoying the twilight and bringing her up to speed with the past twenty-four hours. 

“Tim? No… I don’t think… No, no, I’m wrong. We did meet him once. He came to one of our Saturday night dinner parties. Seemed nice enough. To be honest with you the thing that struck me most about him was his resemblance to… Uh…”

Straightening up as I realise that Backup isn’t going to finish her sentence, I relax against the decaying wooden bench and wish, not for the first time today, that I’d seen a photograph of Tim Greenaway for myself. Sam, an innate sense of dread of being the proverbial shoulder for Richard Greenaway to cry on over drinks causing him to clam up on the subject, kept to himself most of the day so I never had the chance to ask if he had a photo anywhere and while the thought of going for a net trawl for one appealed momentarily, the idea of coming to the attention of the no-doubt-monitoring-all-activity-around-their-dead-agent’s-name spooks put me off. I get, going on first the King’s and now Backup’s reaction, that we must look alike, but what I don’t know is… how… alike. It’s not a big deal, once again I’m more curious than anything else, but at the same time it’s just… interesting.

“It’s alright,” I murmur, effectively letting Backup off the hook, “I’ve already heard what you’ve suddenly decided not to say. The King mentioned it this morning.”

“Oh… So, have you seen a photo?”

“Nope. Didn’t want to run the risk of the spook’s coming down on me like a tonne of bricks if I tried to find one on line and as I told you earlier Sam wasn’t exactly at his most chatty today so it’s not like I could have asked him if he had one.”

“Oh… It’s not like you could have been long lost twins or anything like that. Maybe… brothers? Same size and colouring, similar hair style. Tim dressed more like Sam than you and he was very much dimple-free. His eyes were the same colour as yours though, if I remember correctly, but, and I’m not just saying this because you’re my friend and you know where I live, yours are nicer. In fact, and don’t you go getting a big head here, you’re actually better looking than Tim was. Uh… That’s probably not the sort of thing I should be saying about the poor man given that he’s dead, but there you go.”

“Brilliant. It’s good to know it was never my looks that Sam had a problem with. Must just have been my personality then,” I mutter, the words slipping carelessly out of my mouth before I even think about what it is I’m saying. Sam’s almost never ending array of excuses as to why we were better off not in a relationship – albeit, with the exception of the Grand Finale five years ago, were always short lived and in a misguided attempt to protect me from his inability to commit for fear of me seeing his (perceived) cold, emotionless nature once and for all – are, or so I’m choosing to believe and have faith in, a thing of the past. I’m not doubting the state of our relationship and I’m not even particularly bothered by the idea of him hooking up with someone while I was… away… who looks like me. It’s just… I don’t know. Given that I gave voice to it I suppose it must somehow be preying on my mind.

“Chris…”

“Sorry. Just forget I said anything. Hell. I don’t even know why I said it.”

“Tim wasn’t you. Just because he may have looked a bit like you doesn’t mean anything. Or… If it does, take it as a positive. He may not have been willing to hunt you down and ask for your forgiveness, but clearly you still weighed heavily on his mind. Can you sit there and tell me you never… went with… someone just because he… uh… reminded you of Sam?”

“I can, because I didn’t.” And the reason I didn’t was because I actively avoided anyone who looked even the slightest bit like Sam because I knew it would both hurt too much and be a mistake. What I also knew was that if I couldn’t have the real thing then there was no way I’d want to have anything to do with an impostor.

“Seriously?” Backup queries, doubt coming through loud and crystal clear in her voice. “You never…”

“I never.”

“Oh… That… uh… surprises me.”

Not sure that there’s anything I could say that would convince her, I don’t reply and wait for her to get the hint that a change of subject would be nice.

“Uh… Really,” she murmurs at last, her tone of voice flipping effortlessly back to conversational, “the whole thing of you and Tim looking a bit alike isn’t an issue at all and I don’t know why we’re even wasting time on it. Tim was simply one of many. At one stage it honestly seemed like Sam was going through … a Tim… a week, most of which who looked nothing like you. Oh… Oh my God! There was this one guy, an Australian, and I’m telling you he was hot. Like, scorching hot. Awful accent though, and they bickered constantly over football codes of all things but… Whoa. If he’d kept his mouth shut he would have been the perfect specimen.”

Amused by the chatty, even gossipy way Backup is hsaring her snapshot into Sam’s proclivities – love life, I suspect, wouldn’t exactly be the right term for it – I can’t help but laugh. “I hope you’re not sitting there thinking this is helping.”

“Of course I am,” she fires back, laughing. “I’m just telling you how it was. Happily or not, life during your five years in the States went on.”

“I…” My good humour melting away even though I know it’s not what Backup would have wanted when she let slip with what essentially is nothing more than a simple fact of life, I sigh. “I’m sorry… I feel as though everything I’m doing or saying at the moment is just… wrong. Perhaps we’d better end this call now before I do something to, oh God, I don’t know, piss you off as well.”

“Don’t me silly and stop sounding so dejected. Just… Listen to me, Chris. It’s okay. Everything’s okay, trust me. You’re feeling out of sorts because you’re missing Sam and want to be with him, that’s all. The sky isn’t falling down, the world isn’t being any more crap than normal and, you’ll see, everything will work out fine.”

“Huh?” As pep talks go I’ve certainly had better, but at the same time I’ve got to admit that she’s caught my interest.

“Whether he’s showing it or not,” Backup continues, “you know Sam’s hurting over Tim’s death and instinct, yours that is, not his, tells you that you should be there for him because you care about and, well, because it’s the done thing. Even if you were both just sitting in your living room, Sam pretending to read the paper while you pretended to be watching television, you’d be feeling a lot better than you are now.”

“Maybe,” I reply cautiously, shrugging even though there’s no one around to see me. “But… I could hardly have invited myself to drinks now, could I? Regardless of perhaps wanting to be there for Sam in whatever capacity I could offer, it wouldn’t have been right. I… I’d have been like a mother-in-law on the honeymoon!”

“Oh, nice analogy. I must remember that one.”

“You do that.” I sigh again. “You know what I mean though, don’t you? I’d have been… out of place.”

“Of course I know what you mean and you’re right, gatecrashing, so to speak, a sort of wake for a man you’d never met wouldn’t have been the way to go about things at all. Think… outside the square though. You could have said you’d wait for him at his place instead of being bluffed by his stiff upper lip routine and choosing to keep quiet because you kept telling yourself it was what he wanted from you.”

“Oh…” Ooops. Too busy thinking I was doing the right thing by Sam in giving him space, I hadn’t even thought of offering to meet him later. “You… Uh… You could be right.”

“I’m right. There’s no ‘could be’ about it,” Backup responds. “Don’t forget who it is you’re dealing with here, Chris. Sam doesn’t do emotion and although he might revert to the old closed off routine you’ve got to constantly push him to let you in or, and I really don’t want to be saying this, he’ll just walk all over you again. It won’t be intentional, but he will and if you think about it you know this as well as I do.”

“I…” And, again, she’s right. “Just… Goddamn it, he’s an emotionally stunted git!” I exclaim. “It’s not even that I want to try to get him to talk to me because, hey, believe it or not I’m neither stupid nor masochistic enough to want to have a go at that, I…” And here it is, the crux of the matter. Quashing my own… needs… because I’m so wary of doing anything to upset the still somewhat tentative nature of our relationship. “I just want to be there for him, you know? Maybe I’m wrong and I am actually stupid, but I kind of thought… hoped, even… that after he’d made the effort to land on my doorstep in San Diego that…”

“Get real,” Backup interrupts, sounding amused. “That’ll be as good as it gets for… years… and you know it. I suspect the poor dear is still recovering from the shock of doing that. Just… Do what you want or have to do. If you really want to be there for him then get off your backside and lie in wait for him in his living room instead of skulking around yours. Failing that, write today off and start tomorrow by surprising him with breakfast.”

“Surprise the man who thinks it’s not only acceptable but even quite… pleasant… to eat muesli for breakfast?” I laugh, thankful to Backup for having provided the spark to get me out of the funk I’d found myself in. “Ha! With what, huh? If I offered him a donut he’d probably throw it at my head.”

“I don’t know! Use your imagination. Surprise him by wearing a French maid uniform or something.”

The shock of Backup’s joking suggestion makes me snort – which, let’s face it, is hardly surprising – and earns me a snooty, possibly even pitying, look from the two joggers passing by the front of the bench. Knowing the joggers if not by name then by sight as they’re my neighbours, and possessing an irrational dislike of them ever since I saw them jogging – in his and hers matching bright red Adidas tracksuits – through the cemetery while there was an actual funeral taking place, I ignore the look they’re giving me and reply with a breezy wave and equally as breezy smile. As I’d hoped, this startles them and, all the time maintaining perfect unison, they pick up at speed and quickly disappear, leaving me alone to attempt a witty comeback to Backup and her warped ideas about maids uniforms. 

“I don’t know who should be more disturbed by that thought,” I mutter with another snort as I realise, nope, nothing witty was going to be forthcoming any time soon, “me or you. Just… I don’t want to know. I really don’t.”

“Given the mental images I’m currently experiencing, I don’t want to know either,” Backup retorts, almost hiccuping with laughter. “It… It was just a suggestion.”

“Yeah. A bad one!”

“Where’s your sense of adventure?”

“My sense of adventure doesn’t stretch to fishnets and aprons!”

“Aw… You’ll never know if you never try it.”

“Then it looks as though I’ll go to my grave never knowing. Just… Seriously, Backup, do you mind? I’m now having the mental images too and… and they’re just wrong. I’d rather have a donut thrown at my head than have Sam call on a psychiatrist to section me.”

“For all you know he might be quite… open… to a little game of dress-up now and again…”

“Backup! I think this conversation is deteriorating to a point of no return.”

“No fun, that’s what you are. No fun,” Backup mock complains, still snickering. “That said, you are however sounding… chirpier… than you did when I first called, so… Perhaps my work is done.”

“Chirpier? More… disturbed, more like,” I reply, leaning forward and digging my elbows into my knees as I track an unsteady, most likely drunk man with my gaze as he weaves his way not along the path but through the tombstones. “But… as I’m prepared to admit that disturbed is better than… morose… I thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedule to regale me with your latest comedy routine. I do feel better than I did earlier and I want you to know that I heard everything you said and think that you’re probably right. While I might put off purchasing the French maid’s outfit for the time being, I think going to Sam’s in the morning is the way to go.”

“Sounds good to me. Now, while you’ve probably heard enough unasked for advice for one evening, I just want to end on this… And that’s, be yourself, Chris. That’s all. Contrary to what he’ll let on, it’s what Sam both wants and needs.”

“Mmm…” Hoping that she’s right, I’m about to thank her again for always being the voice of reason when the drunk lurches up to a modern, black marble headstone and promptly vomits all over it. “Shit!” I swear, getting to my feet as, blissfully unbothered by what he’s just done, the drunk staggers off in the direction of the side gate without so much as a backwards glance. “Sorry, Backup, I’m going to have to go. Some guy just puked all over a tombstone and as I can’t just leave it like that I’m going to have to clean it.” 

“Oh, lovely. What a charmer.”

“Tell me about it. There’s a bin only a couple of metres away, or he could have even aimed for the grass, but, no… He had to go and do it all over a headstone,” I mutter, walking over to the monument and shaking my head as I read the gold embossed lettering. “Great. It’s a fairly recent one too. A woman in her forties and… Shit! Stupid bastard. I’ve got a good mind to go after him and let him know just what little I think of him.”

“Chris?”

“It’s a double grave,” I reply quietly as the scent of the vomit makes me back away. “The woman was pregnant at the time of her death and going by the still-fresh-looking red roses by the base I’d say it’s regularly visited. Look, Backup, I’ve really got to go. It’s probably the husband who leaves the flowers and I just can’t stomach the thought of him coming and finding the headstone in this state.”

“Mmm… You’re a good person, you know that, don’t you?”

“No I’m not. I can just imagine how I’d feel if I went to visit the grave of someone I loved and found it… messed up… like this, that’s all. Any halfway decent person would do the same thing.”

“It’s still a nice thing to do,” Backup responds with just the smallest huff of annoyance at my stubbornness, “and as it’s not something I’m prepared to argue with you about I’ll let you go without a another word on the subject.”

“Backup…” Oh great. Don’t tell me I’ve inadvertently offended her. “I didn’t mean…”

“It’s okay, Chris. I’m really leaving you because I can suddenly hear a crying baby. So… Good luck with whatever you choose to do about your recalcitrant partner and… I’ll be seeing you.”

“Uh-huh. Thanks for calling and I’ll let you know if we happen to solve the case of the missing watch.”

Ending the call, I dig my house keys out of my jacket pocket and head towards my apartment. Although I didn’t mention anything to Backup, along with giving me something – useful – to do with my time the woman’s grave has also given me a new perspective on things. I may not be overly impressed with my life at the moment because I’m still not entirely sure where I stand with Sam, but… What of it? I’m alive, I’m healthy, I have friends, money, a good job and God knows there a lot of people far worse of. I’ve done perhaps even more than my fair share of mourning over the course of my life, but to see the grave of the woman and her unborn child and to think how her death must have affected the man who loved her, it just…

Really, it makes the whole Sam-issue seem – insignificant, in fact – like little more than a blip.

Pleased to have a task, albeit an unpleasant one, to do, I unlock my back door and step inside the utility room. While I’d been fully prepared to simply move straight in after the tenants had left my apartment and I once again had the sole set of keys firmly in my hand, Sam wouldn’t have a bar of it – anyone would have thought I’d suggested walking across the Sahara barefoot and with only one bottle of water – and insisted that every nook, cranny and surface be thoroughly cleaned before I took up residence. And it’s thanks solely to Sam’s obsessive neat-streak that I know I have – for most likely the first time in my life – a bottle of disinfectant in the cupboard under the sink. Granted what’s left of it is there should the mood ever take me to really thoroughly clean the bench tops, not to clean some random grave of a woman I never even knew with, but I mentally thank Sam for having put it there anyway.

Grabbing the disinfectant along with a pair of rubber gloves, a scrubbing brush, a sponge and a bucket of warm water, I return to the cemetery and make my way across the lawn to the vomit-stained tombstone. If anything it now smells even worse, thanks to the cool stillness of the early evening air, than it did only a few minutes ago and I quickly deciding that breathing through my mouth is the way to go as I pull the gloves on and slosh half the bucket of water over the black marble. Most of the mess washing away with the water, I crouch down and give it a light scrub with the brush before tipping the rest of the bucket over it and standing back up to admire my handy work. As I’d hoped my hardly strenuous cleaning effort has restored the headstone to its as-new condition and I’m just pouring a small amount of disinfectant onto the sponge when I sense the arrival of someone behind me.

“May I ask just what it is you think you are doing to my wife’s grave?” a cultured, largely accent-free man’s voice asks as a strong hand closes around my shoulder and spins me around.

“I…” While I understand the man’s shock and displeasure at finding me hovering over the tombstone of his wife I don’t appreciate being manhandles and scowl at him as I roughly shake his hand off. Taller than I am and wearing an expensive charcoal suit with a white shirt and elegant mauve tie that I suspect Sam would have been able to name the label of on sight, the man is a picture of upper class style and good breeding. Dark blond hair cut in a short, modern style, clean shaven, blue eyes, slim body – really, he’s the very embodiment of classic good looks.

Well… That is he would be if he wasn’t looking at me as though he’d just seen a ghost.

Eyes wide, he points at me and takes a hesitant step backwards. “You…” He shakes his head and frowns. “You’re supposed to be…”

Fabulous. If I’m right in thinking he’s trying to work out where he’s seen me before, it just really must be the day for it. Much more of it though and I might start wondering about clone-factories and the like.

“Don’t tell me, let me guess,” I interrupt, deliberating speaking in a low, sarcastic drawl as I strip my gloves off and throw them into the bucket. “I look like someone you know, yeah? If it helps, I’ve been getting that a lot just lately. I must just have that sort of face.”

Still frowning, the man takes a step closer and, clutching a bouquet of red and pink roses to his chest like a talisman, slowly looks me up and down. “That must be it,” he states flatly, his frown giving way to a truly icy glare. “You remind me of someone who I believe to no longer be in London,” he continues, stepping into a shadowy area not lit by the old fashioned lamp nearby on the path. “Now, I ask again. What are you doing near my wife’s grave?”

No liking that I can longer see the man’s face clearly, I shift over to the grave and lightly rest my hand on the top of the headstone in the hope of it annoying him enough to follow me back into the light. My plan thankfully working, I wait until the man has strode silently into the light before shrugging and offering him a placating smile. “I live in one of the apartments that back onto the cemetery,” I explain, indicating to the general area with a quick incline of my head as I decide a small white lie is most likely in order to keep the situation from worsening. For some reason I just think lying might appease the man better than telling him I was sitting out in the cemetery simply having a conversation on the phone.

“I was just walking along the path after having gone for a jog,” I add, gesturing at my clothing, “when I saw a drunk stagger along the lawn and… I’m really sorry to have to tell you this… vomit all over the headstone. Now, as I live just over there and because I knew how disgusted I’d be if I found the grave of someone I loved covered in sick, I decided that I’d go home and get something to clean it up with.” Pausing, I give another shrug and increase the wattage of my smile. “And, well, that’s what I’d just finished doing when you arrived.”

“Oh…” His expression softening as he takes in the bucket and disinfectant by my feet, the man nods and moves closer. “That… That’s very kind of you,” he murmurs, his gaze straying to the tombstone as he extends his right hand towards me. “Jonathon Westbury.” 

“Chris Keel,” I reply, surreptitiously wiping my hand on my jacket – yes, I had gloves on while I was cleaning, but you can never be too careful – before taking his and giving it a perfunctory shake. “I’m sorry if my presence startled you. I’d hoped to have it done before you returned and that you never would have even known what had happened.”

“It is I who should be apologising,” Jonathon replies, releasing my hand before kneeling on the lawn beside the grave and picking up the dead roses. “You were doing a good deed and I immediately thought the worst and, without giving myself time to think, simply reacted accordingly. I am sorry for that, Chris, and thank you for your kindness. It is, sadly, a rarity in this day and age.”

“Here. I’ll throw these out for you,” I offer, taking the roses from him and dumping them in the bucket. “As for thanking me, it’s was nothing. Seriously. Just a bit of water and disinfectant.”

“It was still very kind of you,” Jonathon responds as, seemingly oblivious to the risk he’s putting the knees of his trousers under by remaining kneeling on the damp grass, he tenderly places the fresh roses at the base of the headstone. Tears well in his eyes, making it clear that his grief over losing his wife is still very present and raw. “You’re a good person, one who put himself out for no hope of personal gain and I want you to know I truly appreciate it.”

“It was nothing,” I repeat lamely. “I’m sure most people would have done the same thing.” Suddenly feeling as though I’m intruding on something private, I retrieve my bucket and bottle of disinfectant and, without another word, start to walk away. If Jonathon acknowledges my departure I wouldn’t know as I don’t look back over my shoulder and just make my way straight inside.

Content, even though I could have lived without Jonathon arriving when he did, that I’d achieved what I’d set out to do, I lock the door, throw everything into the sink to be dealt with at a later stage and decide that my immediate future consists of nothing more than calling for a pizza and taking a shower.

~*~

Waking to the sound of the lock being turned in the front door followed by footsteps coming up the stairs, I sit up and turn on the bedside lamp. The only thing that stops me from reaching for the ever-present Smith & Wesson under my pillow is that I know the intruder has to be Sam. He’s the only person I gave a spare set of keys to after having all the locks changed before I moved back in and, still half asleep though I may be, I actually recognise the sound of his footsteps. Yawning, I note from the electronic readout on the clock radio that it’s just gone past two in the morning and I’m still struggling to process how many hours there are left of the night before I have to get up and face another day when my door slowly opens and Sam pokes his head into the room.

Finding me sitting up and stifling another yawn, his face falls and he comes to an abrupt stop in the doorway. Looking tired and with his usually neatly styled hair decidedly ruffled, Sam’s dressed not in the suit I know he was wearing to go to drinks in but in jeans and a red sweater and this tells me he must have gone home before coming here. As to why he’s here however I wouldn’t have a clue. Not, given that it saves me from having to arrive uninvited on his doorstep for breakfast, I’m complaining. In fact, as nonplussed and as flatfooted as he looks, I’m pleased to see him.

“I… Hell, Chris, I’m sorry,” Sam murmurs, making no move to shift away from the apparent security of the doorframe. “I didn’t mean to wake you. I… I thought I was being quiet.”

“And to anyone else you probably were,” I reply, throwing back the duvet and swinging my legs over the edge of the mattress. “Light sleeper, remember?” Standing up, I walk over to Sam and place my hand on his arm. This causes him to flinch, as though my touch had broken through his trance or something and this far more than his sudden appearance in the middle of the night worries me. “Hey… What’s up, huh? Come on, Sam… Is everything okay?”

“Everything’s fine,” Sam replies automatically as he pulls his arm away from my hand and steps around me into the room. “I don’t even know why I’m here. I… I shouldn’t have come and woken you. I’m sorry.”

“Crap everything’s fine!” I snap, spinning around and grabbing Sam’s hand. “Seriously, just what gives, huh?” I continue, dragging him over to the bed and forcing him to sit down on it. “Because it’s you and because, strangeness of the time aside, I’m pleased to see you, I don’t mind having been woken up. Hell, even if I did I’m wide awake now so it doesn’t matter. Everything, however, is not fine and I want to know why you’re here.” My piece said, I crouch down in front of Sam and rest my hands on his knees. “Come on… You don’t do anything without a reason and you know it.”

Resting his hands flat on the mattress, Sam looks down at me and sighs. “I shouldn’t have come here,” he repeats quietly, his expression giving nothing away as I respond by curling my fingers perhaps just a tad too tightly around his knees. “I’m not even really sure why I did. All I know is I went home after leaving Canary Wharf, had a shower, went to bed and… I couldn’t sleep. I just lay there, my mind full of Tim’s murder and…” Trailing off, Sam gives a resigned sigh and places his right hand on my shoulder. “I kept thinking of you, wishing you were there with me. I… I don’t know why but it just must have got to me because the next thing I knew I was dressed and in the car on my way over here.”

“You were alone and you were lonely,” I murmur, giving his knees a quick squeeze as I get up and sit down next to him on the mattress. “It’s alright, Sam. Not everything has to be justifiable to the nth degree. I’m your partner in every sense of the word and I’m here for you. If you’d called I’d have come straight over. Truth be told I’d been going to come over in the morning anyway and one of the main things that stopped me from coming over tonight was I didn’t know how late you’d be or… or whether you’d even want to see me.”

A soft smile tugging on Sam’s lips, he slides his arm around my waist and hugs me closer. “You know, I thought… no, hoped… you’d be waiting for me when I got home. Not that I had any right to, given how I’d basically… brushed… you off, but… Whatever. It was just silly of me.”

“No it wasn’t,” I respond, returning my hand to Sam’s knee and leaning against him. “It’s just I thought I was doing the right thing by not… crowding… you. So, I’m sorry. Clearly we’re as clueless as each other.”

“Clearly,” Sam agrees with a quick kiss to my cheek. “Oh well. I’m sure we’ll end up on the same page eventually,” he adds lightly as he stands up and holds his hand out, waiting for me to take it. Once I’ve placed my hand in his he pulls me to my feet and swiftly envelopes in a warm embrace. “It… It was hard tonight, Chris. I don’t know what I was expecting but Richard had brought Tim’s partner, the one he’d asked my advice on wine for, with him and… and I just didn’t know what to say to either of them. It wasn’t even until we were saying goodbye that I remembered to ask about Tim’s Rolex. They were just both so devastated by the loss of their brother and lover that I couldn’t help but imagine how I’d feel in their shoes and…” His voice catching in his throat, Sam hugs me tighter and buries his head against the crook of my neck.

Returning the embrace, I rub my hand along Sam’s back and kiss the top of his head. While he may not be able to find the words to express what he’s feeling I can see through his silence to the hurt – and fear of the unknown – he’s feeling and know better than to make an issue out of it. Besides, he’s here, he actually came to me solely of his own volition, and I’d only be kidding myself if I didn’t say it meant something.

“Come on, let’s go to bed,” I murmur in Sam’s ear. “I could question you on what you’ve found out about the watch or regale you with tales of my evening’s entertainment of cleaning vomit from a tombstone, but… They can both wait. For now I think we should just go to bed and put this day behind us.” 

Lifting his head to look me in the eye, Sam nods and, looking relieved, smiles. “As curious as I might be about the… uh… tombstone story, I couldn’t agree more and think bed does very much beckon.”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Ending the call, I mutter ‘damn’ quite a few times under my breath, sigh loud enough to score a worried look from a passing nun and scan the terminal for Sam. The Alamo desk being at the other end of the Dallas Fort Worth International Airport from where I’m standing near the check-in desks, I can see no sign of Sam and mentally cross my fingers that he’s still standing in the queue and hasn’t managed to return the car yet.

Sighing again and bracing myself for the flurry of temper I’m about to be assailed with, I punch the autodial number for Sam and bring the phone back up to my ear.

He answers on the second ring. “What?”

No hello or display of his usually impeccable manners. No. That’s because he’s tetchy. Tetchy at having spent the last two and a half weeks in Texas, tetchy at having been surrounded by – God forbid – Americans, tetchy at the quality – or lack thereof – of the food, tetchy at the admittedly backward and somewhat alarmingly stupid nature of the local law enforcement officers, tetchy at the ‘second rate, ugly and quite frankly a horrid piece of shit’ Cadillac we hired to get around in, tetchy at me for having been the sucker who agreed to take said Cadillac in the first place. Just… Tetchy, tetchy, tetchy. I inquired as to whether he was suffering from a fortnight long, male version of PMS at some point and I honestly thought he was going to take his gun out and shoot me.

It wouldn’t be a lie to say I was looking forward to returning to London as much as Sam was if for no other reason than to give us both some very much needed space. I understand most of the causes of his ever-increasing ire, and I’m not saying I’ve had the time of my life these past few weeks either, but seriously, I’m over the constant bitching. I got, even murmured words of agreement with, his disgust at the lard masquerading as a cooked breakfast we had to face up to at the diner every morning because it was where our target ate and was the only thing on the menu. I did not, however, need to hear the same diatribe every morning. Same goes for his opinion on their tea, quality of their hygiene levels and whether or not there was any chance the forty-something ex-blonde bombshell waitress’s breasts were in fact real. It was like listening to a cracked record. One that, yes, I was quite looking forward to not having to hear tomorrow morning.

These things, however, are meant to trial us and with any luck the news I’m about to give him will, at the very least, improve his mood a little.

“I hope you haven’t returned the car yet,” I reply. “If you have then, sorry, you’re going to have to book it out…”

“What?” Sam interrupts icily. “After standing in this Godforsaken queue full of people for whom the word deodorant has no meaning for the past twenty minutes I’ve only just handed the keys to that dog of a car back, and you’re saying I…”

“There’s been a change of plans,” I cut in, suddenly glad that I’m having this conversation over the phone and not face-to-face. “We’ve got to go to New Orleans and I think going by road instead of waiting for a flight is probably the best way to go.”

“Why are we going to New Orleans?” Sam grinds out.

“The King just called,” I respond, “and it appears that Tim’s Rolex has just popped up.”

“Oh… You know how to get my attention, don’t you,” Sam murmurs, sounding taken aback.

“Mmm… He’s been monitoring all reports that mention a Rolex for us and it’s definitely Tim’s, a nineteen thirty-eight Prince model Rolex with his grandfather’s initials engraved on the back.”

“And it’s been found in New Orleans?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Where in New Orleans, a pawn shop?”

“Er… Not exactly.”

“Where, then?”

“On the arm of an as-yet-unidentified body that was pulled out of the Mississippi yesterday.”

“Oh. How’d it get…” Sam stops himself from finishing asking the obvious and sighs. “Never mind. You’re still where I left you in the check-in area, yeah?”

“Yep,” I confirm as I glance down at our collection of luggage and decide that, yes, with a bit of difficulty I could carry it all if I needed to. “Do you want me to come and meet you?”

“No. The airport’s filling up and I think it’ll be easier if you just stay right where you are. I’ll just get a car and come meet you.”

“’Kay. See you soon.”

Terminating the call, I slowly roll my shoulders a couple of times in an attempt to alleviate some of the tension I can feel building in them and, needing to keep them updated, dial the office back in London.

“C-Chris,” Eddie answers nervously after the phone has rang ten times, the sight of my number popping up on his phone no doubt ruining his day. “Shouldn’t you… uh… be on a plane?”

“About that… There’s been a change of plans,” I reply, wishing not for the first or I suspect the last time that I knew just what it was about me that freaked Eddie out. Even though I’m on a different continent from him he still sounds as though he fully expects me to reach through the phone line and gauge his eyes out. “I need you to cancel our flights out of Dallas and rebook us on one coming out of New Orleans. Any time tomorrow should be fine.”

“New Orleans?” Eddie echoes questioningly. “But…” He sighs wistfully. “I’ve always wanted to go to New Orleans. Anne Rice lives there, you know. So does Poppy Z Brite.”

“No, I didn’t know that,” I mutter, choosing not to add that while I’ve heard of Rice I haven’t heard of the other name he mentioned with obvious – fan worship – reverence. “Look, if we get time I’ll see about getting you a souvenir…”

“Really? That would be great. If it’s not too much to ask I’d love something from the French Quarter,” Eddie babbles, clearly forgetting just who it is – his own personal version of Public Enemy Number One – he’s talking to. “I hope to get there myself one of these days. There’s just so much history and… and mystique about the place!”

“That there is.” As… interesting… as it is to be finally having what I suspect passes for a normal conversation with Eddie, I really have to get him back on track before Sam returns and most likely gets uppity with me for ‘wasting time’. “Now… Are you clear on what I need you to do?” 

“Cancel today’s flights and rebook for tomorrow coming out of New Orleans,” Eddie promptly replies. “Have you got any time preference?”

“Not really. We should be able to take care of what we’re going there for by this evening, so… Maybe late morning or early afternoon? As direct as you can manage would be great, too.”

“Do you want me to book accommodation for tonight as well?”

“As I hadn’t even thought about that, that would be great, thanks. Just email me the booking details when you’ve made them.”

“Can do. Uh… Not having heard mention of any active cases in the New Orleans area, can I ask why you’re going there? Uh… Not… Not that it’s any of my business, of course, but… Well, Horvath is expecting you back and… if he asks… I… I’d put you through to him now, so you could tell him yourself, but he’s in a meeting and…”

“Just tell him,” I interrupt, “that, yet again, we’re doing Six’s job for them.”

“Excuse me? I… I don’t quite understand.”

“Remember that spook that was murdered in September, the one whose case is now stone cold because they’re so useless they can’t even solve the death of one of their own?”

“Yes, but… I’m not really sure what that’s got to do…”

“A lead has just turned up in New Orleans and as we’re relatively close by the London pathologist handling the case has asked us to look into it,” I explain, choking back an exasperated sigh. “Horvath, I’m confident, will be fine with it. Tomorrow was to be our day off anyway and if all goes as it should we’ll be back in the office Friday so, really, he shouldn’t even notice our change in travel plans.” 

“If he does though, what should I say?”

“Just send me a text or email and I’ll call him, okay?”

“Okay,” Eddie replies dubiously, his earlier exuberance having been replaced by his usual, instinctual fear that I’m out to set him up. “I just wanted to be clear.”

“And now you’re clear,” I retort, glancing at my watch and hoping that Sam isn’t much longer. By my reckoning it’ll be around an eight hour drive from Dallas to New Orleans and the sooner we hit the road the better. “Look, I need to go so I can plan our route. Just send me the booking details when you’ve made them and I’ll see you Friday.”

Not needing to hear Eddie’s stammered response, I end the call and slip the phone into my pocket. I then retrieve the – latest, must have tech-toy – iPad from my case and, all the time keeping one eye on the terminal for Sam, set about mapping the best roads to take to New Orleans. As I’d thought the journey will be around the eight hour mark and so long as we get on the road in the next ten or so minutes we should make it to the New Orleans Forensic Centre before five.

Our route planned, I tuck the iPad under my arm and idly hope that Sam’s curiosity over Tim’s watch having been found will help improve his mood somewhat. Two months have passed since his friend’s murder and mystery still surrounds his death. Courtesy of Horvath having taken an interest in the case – largely due to the spooks demanding alibis from two of his agents, I suspect – we’ve had full access to both the spooks’ and the Met’s findings but neither organisation have been able to come up with very much. Both still lean towards it having been a professional hit, but as to why Tim was the target or who paid for it they’re still floundering. Like his watch suddenly popping up in New Orleans, none of it makes any sense.

Spotting Sam finally weaving his way through the crowd towards me, I nod a greeting and try to ignore the decidedly pissed off looking expression plastered across his face. “Hey. Get the car?”

“Of course I got the damn car,” Sam snaps, glowering at me as he dangles the key from his finger. “What did you think I’ve been doing all this time, enjoying a nice cup of coffee and leisurely read of the paper?”

Oh goody. Looks like the next eight hours stuck in the car with him are going to be just peachy. “Sorry I asked,” I reply snidely, returning Sam’s glower with one of my own. “Look, I know you’re shitty because you were looking forward to getting back to London but, guess what? Here’s a newsflash for you. I was too and I’ve just about had enough of your grouch act. I know America disagrees with you at the best of times and that this case didn’t agree with you at all, but… Suck it up or you can damn well go to New Orleans on your own!”

His expression shifting from shock to anger to finally one of abashment, Sam stares at the car keys in his hand and smiles apologetically. “I deserved that,” he murmurs, “and while I know it’s a case of too little, too late, I’m sorry.”

“Whatever.” Not having planned to let Sam know how much he’s been getting up my nose, I’m a little embarrassed at my sudden outburst and just want to move on. I stand by what I said and I’m actually glad it’s out in the open but getting on the road is more important than bridge building at the moment and I don’t want to make a big deal out of it. “It doesn’t matter.”

“No. It does matter,” Sam responds with a sigh as he places his hand on my arm. “I’m sorry for behaving like a boorish git and while I can’t undo the past I can at the very least attempt to… justify… my latest example of opening my mouth before my brain was in gear.”

Dropping my arm to free it from Sam’s hand, I shake my head and pick up my luggage. “It doesn’t matter,” I repeat, looking pointedly at the remaining bags in the hope he’ll follow suit and we can just get on our way.

“The, and I use the word lightly here, lady at the Alamo counter was… not an example of customer service at it’s best,” Sam states, trying to weasel his way back into my good books with one of his most charming and polished smiles as he shoves the keys into his pocket before picking up his bags and beginning to walk towards the exit. “Not only did she chew gum the entire time she was serving me but she also refused to check to see if they had any other cars available and insisted I take the one I’d just brought back. So, you see, I’m still… smarting… from that whole experience and, with my current lack of decent behaviour, took my frustrations out on you. And, again, for that I really am incredibly sorry and I’ll understand entirely if you want to go back to London on your own and just leave me to my own devices.”

Sam’s apology sounding both heartfelt and reasonable enough, I shrug and flash him a weak smile. “So, it’s still the Caddy, huh?” I query, making what we both know is an obvious bid to change the topic. “You’re right. Given that you were looking forward to handing its keys back just as much as you were getting to sleep in your own bed tonight, no wonder you’re behaving like a bear with a sore head.”

“I knew you’d understand,” Sam replies, his expression changing to one of relief as we walk out of the terminal and begin to make our way through the car park towards the Alamo lot. “And… Uh… To thank you for your understanding I’ll try to be on my best behaviour from now on.”

Knowing that there’s nothing to be gained from muttering ‘I’ll believe it when I see it’, I drop my bags by the back of the Cadillac and hold the iPad out towards Sam. “Here. I’ll swap you map reading duties for the keys and will drive the first leg.”

“You don’t have to do that,” Sam responds, opening the truck and placing his bags inside. “I know you don’t like this abomination of a vehicle anymore than I do and don’t want you to think you have…”

“The King said he’d email any updates he gets so by the time we arrive in New Orleans we should know as much as the coroner,” I interrupt, pushing the iPad into Sam’s hand before dumping my luggage in the trunk and slamming it shut. “Now, as curious as I am about how Tim’s watch ended up on the arm of some guy pulled from the Mississippi, I just thought you’d probably like to be getting the updates first as you actually knew him. So… Give me the keys and we’ll get going.”

“So long as I still do my share of the driving,” Sam mutters, obviously feeling the urge to try to get the last word in as he takes the iPad and gives me the keys. “Chris… Thanks, though. Not just for giving me first access to any updates but, well, for everything. I may not deserve it, but I am grateful, even if I don’t often show it.”

“Yeah, well, you can show it this evening by taking me out to dinner,” I retort, opening the Caddy’s driver’s side door and climbing in. “Come on. The sooner we get to the Forensic Centre the more time you’ll have choosing the best restaurant.”

~*~

Walking through the door that connects our rooms – Eddie, despite his penchant for eyeliner and bondage pants in the office is nothing if not a firm believer in keeping up appearances – in the Ramada Plaza Inn on Bourbon hotel and coming to a stop by the foot of the bed I’m currently sitting on, Sam eyes my collection of purchases spread out across the mattress and looks at me questioningly. “Remind me what all this tat is for again?”

“It’s not tat,” I murmur, quickly covering the crawfish snow dome (which in itself is so spectacularly tacky it almost deserves its own Facebook shrine devoted to it) with the black, dragon emblazoned Hard Rock Café t-shirt and flashing Sam a grin. “It’s a way into Eddie’s heart.”

“A bribe, you mean?” Sam laughs, picking up the allegedly authentic – yeah, right – voodoo doll and, his expression one of distaste, turning it over in his hands. “This is delightful. Dare I hope you’ve purchased me one for Christmas?”

“It’s being specially made as we speak,” I counter, taking the doll and pointing to its raggedy clothing. “Wanting authenticity though you may discover when you’re unpacking that you’re missing a shirt or two. I’m sure, however, that it’ll be worth it.”

“Oh, I’m sure,” Sam replies, sitting down on the opposite side of the mattress from me and pulling a hardback book on the Garden District towards him. “This actually looks reasonable. What gives, did a sales assistant talk you into it? Not… heaven forbid… that I’m implying you have… dodgy… taste or anything like that.”

Pouting, I swing my legs up onto the bed and settle my back up against the mound of pillows. “If you must know a sales assistant -- you’d have loved her, actually. I counted twelve piercings in her right ear alone, and the tattoos, hell, don’t get me started – did talk me into it,” I reply, watching Sam as he flips through the book and admires the stunning photography of historical mansions that fill its pages. “She started raving on about how that area, the Garden District, that is, features heavily in Anne Rice’s books and, well, as Eddie mentioned her name this morning I thought it’d probably be a reasonable thing to buy.”

“And this one?” Sam prompts, closing the book and picking up a novel-sized paperback on the French Quarter. “I suppose he mentioned the French Quarter as well and that’s how we ended up in a hotel smack bang in the middle of it.”

“Uh-huh. I suspect you’re right.” Stretching, I survey my array of souvenirs – and, okay, so I may have gone a little overboard in respect to not knowing when to stop – and hope that Eddie likes them. I’d only intended to buy a mug or pen, something he could keep on his desk, but once I started I just kept seeing more and more things that I thought he’d like. Sam having gone off on his own search for the best restaurant to have dinner in, I was left entirely to my own devices and, like a tourist on their very first holiday away from their place of birth, just kept buying. 

“If he doesn’t feel even the slightest inkling of… like… towards me after I give him all this lot then, seriously, I give up,” I add, picking up the floaty pen with the riverboat in it and tilting it left to right in my hand so the boat travels back and forth in the barrel. “He was the most animated I’d ever heard him when I mentioned New Orleans, so… If this fails I’ve got nothing. I’ve never, not that I’m conscious of, anyway, been rude or mean to him, yet he looks at me as though I’m the Grim Reaper or something. It’s just… peculiar.”

Placing the book back on the bed, Sam looks at me and shrugs. “He’s scared of you because you remind him of someone, a bully, from his school days,” Sam states, frowning as I stare back at him with what has to be a look of shock on my face. “What? Didn’t you know that?”

“If I knew that would I be sitting here blathering on about how I don’t understand his reaction to me?” I drawl, wagging the pen at Sam for emphasis. And, yippee, again I’m hearing that I resemble someone else. Much more of it and I’m going to develop a complex or begin to look into plastic surgery. “Seriously! How long have you known that?”

“He told me last month,” Sam responds with another shrug. “Sorry. I just assumed you knew. There was an American exchange student in his year at high school and he was a bully of major proportions who just happened to make poor Eddie his number one target. Now, whether he actually looked like you, or just perhaps sounded like you, or even, I don’t know, the simple fact that you’re American, Eddie looks at you and is instantly reminded of the bully. I wouldn’t take it personal though as I’m sure he’ll get over it in time.”

Pleased that I have an explanation at last even though I take no comfort from it, I sigh and go back to watching the futile movements of the trapped paddleboat. “But… That shits me, it really does,” I reply softly, more annoyed by this than I probably should be. “I was never a bully. Never. In fact I used to stand up for those who were getting picked on, even if it meant painting a target on my own back. If I’d have been at Eddie’s school I would have taken on the asshole of a bully myself.”

“Actually, given that you’re about thirteen years older than he is, if you’d been at Eddie’s school it would have been as a teacher or some scary, trying-too-hard-to-be-hip undercover cop,” Sam murmurs, shifting along the mattress so he can rest his hand on my thigh. “Facetiousness aside though, I believe you and I know Eddie will come around eventually. You’re a good person, Chris, and I don’t want you to let this get to you.”

“That’s what Westbury said,” I reply absentmindedly as I let the pen slip from my fingers in favour of placing my hand over Sam’s. There must, I’m sure of it, be some sort of major difference between being viewed as a ‘good person’ and actually being one. I’ve never considered myself to be ‘bad’ person, more a perfectly average one and I don’t really understand why the label ‘good’ seems to continually be applied to me.

“Westbury?” Sam queries, his brow furrowing in concentration as he tries to place the name.

“Mmm… The guy I encountered in the cemetery while you were having drinks with Tim’s brother. Remember? There I was playing my concerned citizen role for the night and cleaning a truly disgusting amount of vomit of his wife’s tombstone when, of course, he rocked up and demanded to know what I was doing. His name was Westbury. Jonathon Westbury.”

“Oh… That was two months ago though. I’d have thought, unless the whole vomit-cleaning act left you scarred, that you’d have forgotten the encounter by now.”

“I’ve seen him a couple of times since, you know. Not to speak to, but through the windows of my apartment. He leaves fresh flowers, usually roses but not always, in fact the week before we left for Texas it was lilies, on the grave every week.”

“Sounds like he needs to move on if you ask me,” Sam responds, wrinkling his nose in disapproval. “You said she’d been dead a couple of years, didn’t you?”

“Three, I think,” I reply with a shrug. “He loves her and just wants to keep her memory alive, I suspect. I don’t see anything wrong with that.” There does come a time when moving on from the loss of your loved one just occurs, usually without you even being aware of it, but how long it takes for this to happen is different for everyone. I know this perhaps better than anyone.

“I bet the florist where he gets his weekly bouquets from don’t see anything wrong with it either,” Sam mutters, freeing his hand from mine and flashing me a smile as he stands up. “Before you say anything, you’ve got to be a good person,” he continues as, unable to help himself, he begins to organise my collection of souvenirs into a neat pile. “Let’s face it, you put up with me, don’t you?”

Death and grief never having been one of my favourite topics of conversation, I’m more than willing to follow Sam’s lead into lighter territory and laugh. “When you put it that way…”

“That’s what I thought you’d say.” Retrieving the paddle steamer pen from near my thigh, Sam looks at it closely and shakes his head. “Seriously? You just had to have this too?”

“Yep!” Quickly shifting into a kneeling position, I snatch the pen from Sam and slip it into the front pocket of his shirt. “There! Who said anything about giving it to Eddie?”

“You’re too kind,” Sam retorts, smiling benignly as he pats his pocket. “I’ll treasure it.”

“You do that.” Clambering off the bed, I stretch languidly and, solely for the benefit of my audience of one, rub my stomach. “I’m getting hungry. Please tell me your pounding of the pavement was successful and you’ve settled on a restaurant for dinner.”

“Of course I was successful. What’s more the one I’ve chosen has a menu that even your fussy and unadventurous palate won’t be able to turn its nose up at,” Sam states with a smug smirk. “It’s called Bayona and is on Dauphine Street, so only about a five minute walk away.”

“Brilliant. Let’s get changed and be on our way before I fade away from hunger.”

“Hold your horses. I made the reservation for eight-thirty and, I’ve got a bit of bad news for you here, it’s not even seven yet.”

Giving Sam a beseeching look, I sink down on the edge of the mattress and sigh melodramatically. “I don’t think I’ll be able to make it. You may as well call them and change the booking to one now.”

“Ah, but I’ve already thought of the delicate state of your stomach and come bearing snacks,” Sam replies, looking smugger than ever as he reaches into his trouser pocket and pulls out a Kit Kat. “See? Don’t say I never think of you.”

“My hero,” I murmur sweetly, taking the chocolate bar from Sam’s hand and waving it at him. “If you continue to play your cards right I may even be persuaded to share it with you.”

“And risk ruining my appetite? While I appreciate your generosity, it’s all yours,” Sam responds, smiling. “You know something? As much as I was looking forward to being back in London tonight, I’ve actually got to say that I’m quite pleased to be here. Having to spend eight hours in that Godforsaken crate on wheels that allegedly passes for a car aside, this would have to be the best day I’ve had since we first landed.”

Ripping open the Kit Kat wrapper, I snap off a finger and shove the whole thing in my mouth. “Uh-huh,” I grin through a mouthful of chocolate. “It’s hard not to have a good time in New Orleans,” I add once I’ve swallowed and Sam is no longer looking quite so aghast at my appalling eating habits. “What about the reason we’re here though? Just… What do you make of all that? I’m glad that the missing Rolex has put in an appearance, but… What an appearance, huh? It just doesn’t make any sense.”

“None whatsoever,” Sam agrees as he walks over to the small table by the glass doors that lead out onto the balcony and takes a seat in one of the two chairs placed around it. “I kept going over it in my head as I walked around looking for the best restaurant and… I still can’t make any sense of it.”

“As there’s some rumour going around about two heads being better than one, how about we go through it all again while we wait?” Standing up, I snap off another Kit Kat finger and nibble on it as I walk over to join Sam at the table. “Unless, of course, that is you’ve got any better suggestions.”

“Sorry. I’m fresh out of better suggestions at the moment,” Sam replies, watching me as I sit down on the remaining chair. “So, okay… Let’s go through what we were able to pick up from the coroner.”

“The deceased’s name was Terrence ‘White Boy’ Jackson,” I murmur, trying to remember the facts rattled off to us by the harried and exhausted looking coroner during the five minutes he was able to grant us from his hectic schedule. “He was a member, one on a rapid rise through the ranks apparently, of the Bloods and the nickname White Boy was because he was a massive Eminem fan.”

“White Boy was nineteen years old, of African American descent and his rap sheet has entries on it going back to when he was eleven,” Sam continues, taking up the sad and sorry life story of Jackson. “From boosting cars to breaking and entering to robbing tourists at gunpoint, he was nothing if not busily devoted to his life of crime. Although the charges were dropped, most likely because the victim was a sister of a fellow Blood, he’d recently added rape and attempted murder to his police held list of life’s highlights.”

Finishing my chocolate, I let the wrapper flutter onto the table top and sigh. “In other words the dear boy didn’t really have a lot going for him.”

“What you really mean to say is he was a complete waste of oxygen,” Sam scowls. “Don’t try to paint a better picture of him because he’s dead as he was nothing but an asshole, end of story. It was only a matter of time before he killed someone and you know it.”

Feeling no more affection for White Boy given what I know about him than Sam, I shrug and hold my hands up in a gesture of surrender. “Hey. You’ll get no argument from me. Whoever dumped him in the Mississippi did the world a favour. But… Let’s get back to the facts here. Jackson had a lifetime of crime to look forward until someone or someones unknown ended it for him and threw his body into the river.”

“And how they ended it is still unknown,” Sam adds, drumming his fingers with obvious frustration on the table top. “No clear cause of death, been in the river for around two weeks, too decomposed for forensics to be of any use, preliminary findings indicate no water in the lungs though so about the only thing that is known for a fact is that he was dead before he was tipped in.”

“Could be gang related,” I offer even though I know I’m essentially voicing the obvious, the lead the police would be actively following if they weren’t already ran off their feet and the victim wasn’t just a career criminal gang banger. “That could explain his missing earring, the truly tasteful diamond ‘E’ that was – and this could be important, who knows – carefully removed from his ear as opposed to just being ripped out. Maybe the killer was from a rival gang and he needed to take White Boy’s trademark earring back as proof of the kill.”

“Fine, whatever. To be honest I don’t care who killed him,” Sam mutters with a distinct lack of interest as, suddenly banging his hands down on the table, he gets up and pulls Tim’s Rolex out of his trouser pocket. “Just what the hell was he doing with this on his left wrist, huh?” he continues, gazing down at the watch safely protected by its evidence bag for a few moments before placing it gently on the table and, with a sigh, running his fingers through his hair. “It doesn’t make any sense. Jackson had probably never even been out of the state, didn’t have a passport and, let’s face it, most likely wouldn’t have even been able to point to London on a map. So… Unless you’ve got a better theory I would say that rules him out of being in contention for both Tim’s murder and the theft of the watch.”

“I think it’s safe to say he’s in the clear for those particular crimes,” I agree, pulling the evidence bag towards me and, smoothing the plastic flat, closely inspecting the badly water damaged watch. Rolex being close to indestructible, I know that it will be able to be restored after we’ve given it to the King and he’s finished inspecting it for any evidence the New Orleans team may have missed and I suspect Sam will arrange for it to be done himself before handing it back to Richard Greenaway. The Mississippi not having been kind to the watch, I can only imagine what it must have looked like before it went into the water and hope that we’re able to keep its surprise return from Tim’s brother until its been through the restoration process.

Leaning back in my chair, I entwine my fingers behind my head and look up at Sam. “Okay. Hypothetical time, I suppose. The killer sees Tim’s watch after killing him and decides to take it. He then travels over to America and sells… or loses… the watch and…”

“Or, in a case of what goes around comes around, gets killed and the watch is taken from him,” Sam interjects, his expression making it clear that out of the three options we’ve come up with that would be his preferred one.

“Or he could be alive and well and… anywhere,” I reply. “He also could have got rid of the watch while still in England and someone completely unrelated to Tim’s murder could have brought it over to the States. Somehow, however, and perhaps we’ll never know how exactly, the Rolex made it not only to New Orleans but also onto the arm of a gang banger. Now, was the hardly known for his sartorial elegance White Boy wearing it before he was killed, or did the killer just place it on his arm before dumping his body in the river? And, if it was the latter, why? Why would you put an expensive watch on a dead body?”

“You forgot the one about why would a member of the Bloods be wearing a classic Rolex,” Sam responds as, turning to face the glass door, he looks over the small balcony and down onto Bourbon Street. “A number of gang members certainly have a lot of cash to throw around, and they like their… what’s that stupid word again, ah… I know… bling, but that watch, while certainly expensive, isn’t their style at all and I honestly can’t imagine Jackson wearing it voluntarily.”

“Which brings us back to the question of why would the killer place it on his body?” Frustrated by the apparently never ending array of questions we keep voicing that we don’t have answers for, I stand up with a sigh and make my way over to where Sam’s standing. “You’re right. None of this makes any freaking sense whatsoever.”

Turning to face me, Sam shrugs and leans back against the glass door. “It makes next to no sense, but what if it’s the same killer?”

“Oh God, now there’s a thought.”

“Tell me about it.”

“Hit man? Serial killer?”

“Your guess is as good as mine..”

“As you said though, it doesn’t make any sense. A spook and a gang banger? The only thing that connects the murders is Tim’s watch and we’ve already worked out there’s any number of ways it could have ended up on White Boy.”

“I know…” Looking me in the eye, Sam smiles wanly and shakes his head. “Having more questions than answers I think I’m just going to content myself at the moment with the fact that we’ve at least got Tim’s watch back. It’s… Well, it’s a start.”

“That it is.” Feeling that we’ve basically done this conversation to death for the time being, I smile and tap my watch. “How about we get changed and head to the restaurant, yeah? If we’re still too early I’m sure we can find a bar to have a drink in on our way. If you promise not to ask any more questions that I can’t answer I might even offer to pay.”

Pushing away from the door, Sam closes his hand around my shoulder and gives it a squeeze on his way past. “You’re on.”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

“Chris! Hey, Chris!”

Eddie’s insistent use of my name causing me to stop in my tracks, I turn around and make my way back to his cubical. “You bellowed?” I inquire coolly, taking in his – decidedly at odds with the eyeliner, piercings and possibly maybe, if I’m not hallucinating, the slightest hint of black lipstick smeared across his lips – happy, expectant expression and marvelling at what a difference a collection of tacky souvenirs can make. Ever since I gave them to him when we returned from New Orleans three weeks ago it’s been like he’s become my new best friend. I’m not complaining as God knows being babbled at and receiving constant offers for coffee – or water, or Coke, or if it’s not in the kitchen he’d be only too happy to go out and get it for me – is preferable to being looked at as though I’d just murdered his puppy, but… This new and improved version of Eddie is perhaps even stranger than the old one and I find that I’m still adapting to it. Sam, needless to say, thinks it’s all rather hysterical and he positively perks up with anticipation every time he spots Eddie heading in my direction.

“I’ve been able to organise for tomorrow the sole use of the satellite you asked for,” Eddie replies proudly. “Five had put in a request for it as well but I was able to see them off.”

“Excellent. Thanks for that,” I state, hoping I look suitably impressed as opposed to, given that I have no recollection of having asked for satellite time, as blank as I actually feel. “That’s… uh… great work.”

“Well, as you asked I had to find a way to ensure it happened,” Eddie beams, looking chuffed beyond all belief at his prowess. “I’ve also booked the conference room so you won’t be interrupted. If you’d like I could hook the projector up and…”

“The laptop will be fine, thanks,” I interject, cutting him off before he offers to move the coffee machine into the room as well. “The t-shirt looks good,” I add, making a bid to change the subject as I notice he’s wearing the Hard Rock Café t-shirt I gave him. I’m not too certain it goes with the lime green long sleeve top he’s wearing underneath it but, emo-culture not really being my thing, what would I know. 

Glancing down at his chest, Eddie wafts his hands over the dragon on his t-shirt and smiles shyly. “I’ve had a lot of compliments on it. You… You have good taste.”

“You’re forgetting that,” I laugh, pointing to the hideous crawfish snow globe as it sits on his desk by the computer monitor. “No one could accuse the purchaser of that… abomination… of having good taste.”

“It… It has character,” Eddie replies without hesitation as he starts to reach for the snow globe as though he’s planning on handing it to me for a closer look. “In fact, the detail…” His phone ringing saving me from learning more than I ever wanted to know about the crawfish, I mouth, ‘see you later,’ and quickly take my leave. 

Concerned that there must have been a reason for requesting the satellite link, I run through all the active cases I’m involved in and am still none the wiser as I near my desk and find Sam sitting in my chair. “No, no. Don’t get up,” I announced cheekily as Sam spins the chair around to face me. “Please. Make yourself at home. Of course, if you’d like to finish that report for me while you were there I wouldn’t say no.”

“Your phone was ringing so…”

“Uh! Before you explain why your ass is in my seat, why did I ask Eddie for satellite time tomorrow?”

“Horvath asked you to arrange it for him. Why?”

“Because Eddie just told me, pretty much in terms of it being the coup of the century, that he’d managed it and I didn’t have the heart to tell him I had no idea what he was talking about.”

“Ah… Your fleeting attention span strikes again,” Sam smirks. “Now that that’s out of the way though can I get back to telling you about the phone call you missed?”

“Go for it.” Sinking down in Sam’s chair, I swivel around in it to face him and gesture for him to continue. “Well. I’m waiting.”

“Short attention span and impatient,” Sam retorts, favouring me with a snort and an unimpressed expression. “I don’t know why I put up with you, I really don’t.”

“You put up with me because of my delightful personality and the fact I’m dynamite in the sack,” I tease, casually looking around me to ensure no one’s paying us any attention before leaning forward and quickly planting a wet kiss to the tip of Sam’s left ear. “Now, you were saying?”

Pulling a face as he makes a show of wiping the back of his hand over his ear, Sam rolls his eyes and sighs. “While there’s a lot of things I could say I think I’ll just settle for telling you about the phone call.”

“Wimp.”

“Lunatic.”

Laughing, I settle back in the chair and prod Sam’s leg with my foot. “Okay, okay. Now that you’ve succeeded in hurting my feelings you may as well just get on with your phone call story before you really end up sticking the knife in.”

“Fine. And this time I’m not going to let you sidetrack me,” Sam replies warningly as he places his foot over mine and gently presses down on it. “Just… Shut up and listen. The King called to tell us that he thinks he’s been able to locate another two murders connected by items placed on the body that, well, basically shouldn’t have been there.”

“Oh.” The easy, light mood of only a short moment ago disappearing at Sam’s statement, I look at him and frown. “You’re kidding. Another two?”

“Another two,” Sam confirms flatly. “While he didn’t want to go into details over the phone what he did mention was that both the murders were last year.”

Shit. This mess we’ve somehow found ourselves ensnared in just keeps getting better. It’s not even an assignment we should be involved in yet we can’t seem to distance ourselves from it. “What the hell’s going on, huh? If there’s some serial killer nut job out there why haven’t the police been able to put two and two together?”

“Different jurisdictions,” Sam responds. “Think about it. Tim was killed in London but his watch surfaced in New Orleans. If the King hadn’t been monitoring all reports for any mention of the watch we probably never would have even known about it popping up on White Boy. Now, I don’t know about these other two murders he claims to have found but, again, if it wasn’t for the King’s curiosity the link… if there even is one… may never have come up.”

“Yeah… I suppose you’re right,” I murmur, rubbing my temples as I begin to feel the telltale signs of an impending headache. “As he didn’t want to tell you the details over the phone is he wanting us to call in on his office?”

“I was getting to that,” Sam replies, giving me a look that tells me there’s a good chance I’m not going to like what he’s going to say next. “Apparently you agreed with him at some point that we really should go around to his place for dinner one night.”

“Oh no…” I should have known that particular… social nicety… would return one day to bite me on the ass. It’s not that I’m not fond of the King, and -- the headache inducing nature of what’s he been able to find out aside – I certainly appreciate the extra work he’s putting into this… oddity… we appear to have stumbled across, but… It’s December, which means Christmas mania is out in full force, and given his love for all things American and just general over-the-top in nature I can’t help but shudder at the thought of how he chooses to celebrate the festive season. It could, I well suspect, be… interesting.

“Oh yes…” Sam’s expression makes it clear that his thoughts are following the same direction as mine are and that they’re… unnerving… him. “He has a meeting tonight, one that he can’t miss, but tomorrow night he’s free and we’re expected at his place in Clapham at seven.”

“No chance we could just drop in on him sometime tomorrow?”

“He was adamant about wanting to make a dinner party out of it. Apparently his partner has been assisting him in his research and he thinks it would be… nice… for us to go over it together.”

“Oh.” Accepting that tomorrow night’s dinner date is effectively a done deal, I decide to try to view it in a more positive light and force a smile. “Maybe it won’t be as bad as we’re fearing.”

“Actually, for me anyway I’m confident that it won’t be.” Sam smiles and pats my knee. “You see, given that I plan to duly sample the wine I offered to take, you’re driving.”

Which means… I won’t be drinking and will have to endure the entire evening sober. “I’m going to remember this,” I groan. “Just you wait. When you least expect it I… will… get you back for this. Mark my words.”

~*~

“Now, are you sure the four bottles you’ve got are enough?” I query blithely as I bring the car to a stop at a red light. “I can see an off-license just up the road. If you’d like me to stop so you can add to your stock you just have to say. I would, after all, hate for you to actually have to remember any of this evening.”

“Four, I’m sure, will be fine,” Sam replies with a smooth, practised smile. “Given the King’s predilection for all things Yankee he’ll probably only drink that Budweiser muck you yourself so favour anyway and I’ll actually end up not having any competition for the wine.”

“David’s an unknown factor,” I point out, glancing at the GPS and noting that we’re only about five minutes away from our destination. “For all you know he too could be a stuck-up wine connoisseur. Then how would you cope?”

“Quite well, actually. I could talk to him about grape varieties while you entertained the King with a no doubt truly inspiring conversation on the merits of Bud versus Coors.”

Quickly poking my tongue out at Sam as the light turns green, I put the car into gear and drive across the intersection. “I hope you’re planning on getting the… unfunny, I might add… comedy routine out of the way before we get there.”

“You started it,” Sam retorts, looking supremely unbothered, “or has your attention span struck again and you’ve already forgotten the smart arse comment about the wine?” 

“Just trying to get it out of my system before we get there,” I mutter, flipping the indicator on and waiting for the traffic to clear before turning left into a suburban side street. “Oh! And believe it or not I’m being serious here, don’t forget we’re not meant to call the King… uh… King in his home and have to remember that his name is actually Henry.”

“Remind me again why exactly that is?” Sam asks, his expression for the first time since we left the office and got into the car one of mild interest. 

“David apparently thinks, as quaint and as apt as it may be in the working world, that it’s at risk of feeding him ideas of grandeur if used in the home,” I explain, unable to keep the amusement I feel at this out of my voice. “So, yes. While we’re their guest tonight it’s Henry. The Ki… uh… sorry… Henry made a point of sharing this little titbit when he called this afternoon to remind me of our… date.”

Snickering – because I suspect he’d be feeling that a heavy sigh would be too obvious – Sam glances at me as I wait for an incredibly slow moving Nissan Micra to get out of my way before turning into… the man formally known as the King’s… street and smiles far too brightly. “This evening’s just going to have everything, isn’t it?”

“Oh… You have no idea.” Instinctively knowing the semi-detached house we’re coming up to is our destination without needing to look at its number thanks to the astonishing amount of Christmas lights dripping from both it and the front yard, I choke back a groan and wait for the verbal fireworks to erupt from the passenger seat. 

“What? You’ve got to be bloody kidding me!” Sam exclaims, his eyes widening as he tries to take in the entire spectacle at once. “Chris, no… Just, no. I change my mind. If it’s this bad outside imagine what it’ll look like on the inside. We’ll tell him something came up that we couldn’t get out of and will just have to corner him in his office tomorrow to hear about his discovery.”

“Suck it up, Sammy,” I reply, pulling into the driveway and parking behind the King’s Jaguar. “We’re here now, I’m hungry, I want to know about these two murders he thinks could be linked and… and it would be rude to pull a disappearing act just because we don’t happen to agree with… uh… the décor.” Pausing, I pull the key out of the ignition and open the door. “Even if I do think Rudolph over there has a mean look in his eye and I really hope they don’t care to tell us either how long it all took or how many lights were used.”

“Fine,” Sam sighs as he retrieves the wine from the backseat before climbing out of the car and looking at me over the roof. “I’ve changed my mind though. I no longer think four bottles are enough. If you just give me the keys I’ll…”

“Nope. You won’t.” Walking around the front of the car, I stare pointedly at Sam until he gets the hint to – just give up already – join me and together we make our way along the short path to the front door. “Now, remember… Play nice, it’s Henry, and for God’s sake, whatever you do, don’t freak out at the sight of the cats.”

“What? You never said anything about there being…” The front door opening silencing Sam mid-whine, he shoots me a glare, plasters a smile across his face and holds the bag containing the wine out in front of him. “Henry! Hope we’re not too early.”

“Samuel! Christopher! How delightful to see you both,” Henry beams, gesturing us both inside. Wearing jeans and a red shirt – not the ice hockey or baseball top I half expected to see him in – he looks both relaxed and genuinely pleased to see us. “Come in, please. You’re not early at all,” he continues, taking the bag from Sam and quickly taking a peek at its contents. “Ooh! Lovely. You’ve certainly covered all bases. I’ll take them in the kitchen… Oh! The kitchen! Forgive me, please. Just… Where are my manners? David asked me to pass on his apologies, he’s just putting the finishing touches on the main course and will be along in a moment. Now, come along. We’ll go into the living room.”

Feeling slightly as though I’ve just been hit by the verbal equivalent of a whirlwind, I share a – God help us – look with Sam and follow Henry along the passageway to the living room. Unlike the anything-goes display of festive cheer decorating the front of the house the interior décor is tasteful, in varying tones of beige, caramel and stained pine and dark brown leather furniture and the living room even has fireplace complete with roaring fire. A large fake-yet-still-realistic looking fir Christmas tree dominates the corner of the room and, again in direct contradiction to out the front, it’s adorned solely in gold and silver baubles and looks as though it would be perfectly at home on display in an upmarket department store. The whole effect is both warm and welcoming and, unable to help myself, I gravitate immediately over to stand in front of the fire. Sam, still looking more than a little shell shocked, takes a seat on the leather sofa.

“Oh dear, wherever are my manners?” Henry declares from the doorway as, beginning to slip from his grasp, he only just manages to keep a hold on the bottles of wine. “You must both be dying for a drink. I make a mean cocktail, if I do say so myself, or shall we just start on the wine?”

“Wine, a red if you’ve got one open, would be lovely,” Sam replies, his gaze glued to the bag being clutched to Henry’s chest. Whether this is because he’s worried about it being dropped on the floor or because he’d quite like to grab a bottle and skull it, well, that’s not something I’d feel confident of placing a bet on.

“Just Coke for me, if you’ve got it,” I respond, jiggling the car keys I’m still holding in my hand. “One of us has to drive and you’re looking at the sucker who pulled the short straw.”

“Zero? Diet? Cherry?” Henry offers, pulling a ‘you have my sympathy’ face at my plight. “Name your poison.”

“Plain old ordinary Coke?” Christ. If I’d known I’d have to choose which flavour of cola I wanted I wouldn’t have bothered and would have just asked for water. Mind you, given that that comes as flat, aerated or from the tap, it probably wouldn’t have done me much good either.

“One plain old ordinary Coke and a glass of red wine coming right up.” Still beaming in a way that’s making me think they don’t get many visitors, Henry spins on his heels and walks off.

The warmth of the fire feeling incredible against my legs and back, I stretch languidly and snicker. “Henry! Hope we’re not too early,” I murmur, mimicking Sam’s abrupt change in mood when Henry opened the door. “Seriously, the way you changed tack back there was a true thing of beauty and skill to behold. It was so good, in fact, that I’m thinking of nominating you for a BAFTA.”

“You’re looking at a highly trained operative here, mate,” Sam smirks as he slowly glances around the room, taking it all in. “I can adapt to any situation as it arises.”

“Uh-huh. The name’s Curtis, Sam Curtis. Is that it?”

“You’ve got it in one. Nothing phases me. I size up the moment and instinctively know how best to react.”

“Really? That’s great,” I retort, noting from my prime position in front of the fireplace the two, stealth arrivals as they pad silently on four paws into the living room. “Adapt to this then.”

“Adapt to…” Trailing off as he too notices the Siamese slink across the floor to check us out, Sam shoots me a somewhat comical – to me, anyway – look of horror and shakes his head. “I thought you were joking when you mentioned there were cats,” he hisses, his whole body stiffening as one of the cats – Scarlet, if the green velvet collar and my memory of the King’s description of her is anything to go on – sniffs his shoe before hopping delicately up onto the sofa and tentatively prodding his thigh with a paw. “Chris…”

“What?” I grin, crouching down and extending my hand to the other Siamese, Rhett, as he stalks over to no doubt vet me for my suitability to be allowed in his house. “Go on. Adapt away, Mr Cool Calm and Collected Special Agent. It is, after all, only a cat.” Apparently finding me acceptable, Rhett pushes his head against my hand and begins to purr as I run my other hand along the sleek fur of his back. “Just do this and I’m sure you’ll have her eating out of the palm of your hand.”

Looking increasingly flustered, Sam shakes his head and glares at me. “Her? How do you know it’s a… Never mind. I probably don’t want to know anyway,” he mutters, slowly – as though he expects any sudden movement might set his feline friend off – lowering his head to keep a watchful eye on Scarlet as, finding his thigh to be of tolerable quality, she walks onto his lap and promptly settles herself down.

“Look! She likes you. Would you like me to get my phone out so I can take a photo to record the touching moment?” I tease, enjoying Sam’s discomfort far too much. It’s not even that he harbours a particular dislike of cats. In fact, if really pushed on the subject he’d probably reluctantly own up to preferring them to dogs (as bad as sitting on your lap may be, having your crotch sniffed or your leg humped by a horny canine is far worse). It’s more… animals… in general that upset Sam’s delicate constitution. Their fur gets everywhere, some are prone to bad odours, they require care and attention and, most alarmingly of all, they can be unpredictable. All in all they’re just not… him. And it’s because of this lack of affinity that I’m finding his reaction to Scarlet to be so amusing.

“You do that and I’ll… Ah! Henry!” The return of our host swiftly bringing Sam’s – supreme – acting abilities back to the fore, he smiles and, with no sign of unease whatsoever, strokes his hand along Scarlet’s back. “I was just saying to Chris how stunning your cats are,” he lies smoothly, taking the offered glass of wine from Henry’s hand and toasting him with it. “Thanks. I’ve been looking forward to this all afternoon.”

Standing up, I shoot Sam a – ‘honestly, sometimes I just don’t believe you’ – look before turning to Henry and watching him in amazement as he all but puffs up with pride at what he thankfully seems to believe is a heartfelt compliment. “They’re certainly rather beautiful,” I add as, signalling his disappointment at no longer being the centre of my attention, Rhett extends his tail perfectly upright and sashays over to the Christmas tree. “I’ve always had a thing for cats. In fact…” A truly delightfully malicious thought entering my mind, I glance over at Sam and smirk. “Now that I’m settled back in London perhaps I could look into getting one of my own. Sam? What do you think? Perhaps one of those long haired, fluffy white ones. You know, the ones with the pushed in noses and snooty expressions.”

“I think you’re referring to Persians,” Henry replies as Sam nearly chokes on his mouthful of wine. “The pushed in nose thing, as you so quaintly described it, is quite prone to resulting in breathing difficulties though, so unless you’re prepared to get well acquainted with your local vet they may not be the breed for you.” Handing me my glass of Coke, he walks across the room and scoops Rhett up from the floor and cradles him in his arms like a baby. “May I be so bold as to suggest a Siamese? Far less shedding, and the character! Oh my. You have no idea how much character can be crammed into such a compact creature.”

“A Siamese?” I murmur, feigning utter fascination in the subject as, his lap still playing home to Scarlet – who, if my eyes aren’t deceiving me, is slowly kneading his thighs through his no doubt designer label trousers – Sam glares warning daggers at me. “Perhaps you’re right. I certainly like what I’ve seen so far of yours.”

“A pet is a lot of responsibility, Chris,” Sam pipes up, flinching as Scarlet’s claws hit a particularly tender spot. “Think about it. You’re away a lot and…”

“They can be boarded. And it’s not like I’m never home. I don’t know. It just might be nice having something to come home to.”

“Cats are very hygienic creatures and, assuming that is that one could cope with your version of housekeeping, you’d have to clean up after it. Do you think you’d be able to bring yourself to replace the kitty-litter every day?”

Mentally congratulating Sam for – how well he knows me – his cunningness, I try to keep a straight face and sigh. “I’m not entirely useless, you know. I… I’m sure the pay off would be worth a daily dose of kitty-litter.”

“There are such wondrous things as self-cleaning kitty-litters,” Henry interjects, his focus enough on the Siamese purring in his arms to be oblivious to our verbal game. “They still require cleaning, of course, but on a weekly not daily basis. Of course, there are also those patient enough to teach their cat how to use the human toilet.”

“Patient? Chris?” Sam splutters, looking aghast as the thought of finding a cat perched on the toilet seat pushes him effortlessly over the edge. “I really don’t think…”

“It’s quite hard, actually,” Henry muses, talking over the top of Sam. “We tried with these two but they wouldn’t have a bar of it. I don’t think they approved of sharing with us. But! Enough on feline toileting. If you’re serious, Christopher, about wanting a kitten the breeder we got Rhett and Scarlet from have frequent litters available and I’d be only too happy to introduce you.”

“I…” Okay. Perhaps this has now gone a little too far. I like cats and would actually entertain the idea of getting one but, and I can see it now, if I’m not careful I’ll be herded into a car to go visit the breeders and be all signed up for a Siamese kitten before I even know it. Which, simply put, would be moving far too fast and a somewhat high price to pay for a bit of amusement. “Thanks for the offer. I… Uh… I’ll certainly keep that in mind,” I finish as, quickly taking a suddenly much needed swallow of Coke, I join Sam on the sofa. “Hey. Stop looking so worried. I wouldn’t get one without asking your opinion on the breed.”

“Ah… I see you’ve already met the resident felines,” a new voice announces from the doorway. “And, well I never, it certainly looks as though Scarlet has found herself a new friend.”

His face quite literally lighting up at the arrival of his partner, Henry gently places Rhett on the floor and gestures David into the room. “Christopher, Samuel, allow me to introduce David. David, Scarlet’s new best friend is Samuel, which means…”

“This has to be Christopher,” David murmurs with a smile as he walks over and extends his right hand. 

“It…” Stopping myself from saying ‘it’s Chris and apart from the King, uh, sorry, Henry, the only people ever to have used my full name – grandmother, particularly cantankerous great aunt, and a sickly cousin who was a tad obsessed with Christopher Robin – are all dead’ because, let’s face it, it wouldn’t achieve anything, I stand up and shake his hand. “It is indeed,” I state blithely as, surreptitiously checking David out, I decide, given the weight we’re prone to attributing to first impressions, that I like what I see. About my height, which makes him a little shorter than Henry, and with hazel eyes in an open, friendly face framed by slightly unruly dark blond hair, there’s something about David that makes him appear immediately approachable and I instinctively suspect we’ll get on quite well.

“I’m pleased to be finally meeting you after all this time,” David replies, shaking my hand warmly before turning his attention to Sam. “No, no. Please. Don’t get up,” he laughs as, eyeing Scarlet with trepidation, Sam starts to stand up. “As Scarlet never taking too kindly to an upheaval in her bedding, we can shake hands at some later point.”

“I’ll have to move sometime,” Sam responds with a wry smile as, knowing full well she’s being talked about, Scarlet carefully extends a claw and snags it in his trousers. “In fact, I’m beginning to think that perhaps sooner rather than later may be the way to go. Surely it would be… uh… kinder to disrupt her now, before she becomes too settled?”

Obviously feeling more generous towards Sam’s predicament than I am, David chuckles and gently lifts the Siamese from his lap. “Here. Allow me. As Henry’s friends I don’t want the cats to scare you off visiting again and promise to keep a watchful eye out for them from now on.” Hugging Scarlet to his chest, he walks over to Henry and, in a casual display of affection, leans against his side. “Well, they appear to have passed the feline vetting process with flying colours,” he comments lightly, “so they must be okay then.”

“Told you,” Henry replies, laughing as he rests his arm around David’s shoulders and plants a quick kiss on the top of his head. “He mightn’t trust my judgement,” he adds, “but he trusts the cats’, so if that doesn’t tell you where I stand in the grand scheme of things…”

“Ha! Don’t go looking for sympathy from our guests,” David grins, ducking free of Henry’s arm and sharing a wink with me. “Don’t forget they’ve already seen your handiwork at the front of the house and are probably already questioning if not your judgement then certainly your ideas of… taste.” 

Laughing, Henry elbows David in the ribs and shakes his head. “Watch it, you, or I’ll go back on my word about extending my… vision… inside,” he retorts as, having had enough of being held, Scarlet jumps neatly to the floor and wanders over to join Rhett under the Christmas tree. “Besides, they’ve known me longer than you have, and they’ve seen my office.”

“He’s right,” Sam murmurs as, brushing invisible cat fur from his trousers, he stands up. “Sorry, David. We actually gave up questioning Henry’s… taste… a long time ago and have simply accepted it as… his and his alone.”

“Well, it certainly is quite… unique,” David replies, the evident fondness he feels for his partner coming through loud and clear in his voice. “Ours is a relationship of negotiation. This year I was allotted control of the indoor decorations while Henry was allowed carte blanche outside. This way we were both happy.”

“Sounds perfectly sensible to me,” I reply, enjoying both the easy flowing conversation and their evident – unpretentious and natural – affection for each other. “What’s more, I like both looks. Outside reminds me of the great neighbourhood Christmas light competition I grew up with, while the tree in here is simply stunning. You’ve really got the best of both worlds happening.”

“I knew I could count on you, Christopher,” Henry responds, giving David a clearly feigned smug look. “Why don’t you take them on a quick tour while I put the finishing touches to the entrée?” he adds, directing the question to his partner even as he begins to slowly walk towards the door. “If the smell coming from the kitchen is anything to go by I’d say you’ve got about five or so minutes to both show off and wax lyrical about your hobby of dabbling in interior design.”

Shrugging his acceptance, David nods and, bowing, gestures towards the doorway. “Gentlemen, does a quick tour of our humble abode appeal or would you simply prefer to remain here enjoying the fire?”

“A tour appeals to me,” Sam replies, glancing at me as he takes a sip of wine. “Chris?”

“Lead the way,” I respond, general curiosity about our hosts' home being a good enough incentive to make me view leaving the glorious warmth of the fire for a reason other than food an acceptable one. 

“Excellent,” Henry beams, clapping his hands together with delight. “David, please show Christopher and Samuel around while I dish up the entrée. We can then eat before retiring to the study with coffee and sharing our strange discoveries. If, of course, that suits everyone?”

“Suits me fine,” I confirm as both David and Sam murmur their assent in unison. “See? We’re all in agreement so what do you say we get to it?”

Looking pleased that everything’s been organised to his satisfaction, Henry nods and, with a quick squeeze of his hand around David’s shoulder, leaves the living room for the kitchen. 

“I suppose we’d better get going then,” David smiles, stepping through the doorway into the passageway. “As the dining room, where we’ll end up, is on this floor, how about we start upstairs?”

Interior design definitely being one of David’s fortes, the rooms we poke our heads in as he takes us through their home all pay testament to both an eye for style and a willingness to, just as they did with the Christmas decorations, negotiate the tricky path of differing tastes to reach an outcome that suits everyone. Retro – or they could just as easily be authentic antiques, it’s hard to tell and I’m far from an expert – Mickey and Minnie Mouse plastic figures of varying sizes take up a bookshelf in the second bedroom and I put them down to belonging to the King. The collection of black and white photography books on the shelf below, that tie in nicely to the elegantly framed photo of the Eiffel Tower on the opposite wall, however I attribute to David. And that, the blending of collections – and in the case of the Pop Art American flag print in the downstairs toilet, idiosyncrasies – is evident in every corner of the very much lived in and welcoming house. It feels, despite the obvious effort that has gone into creating it, like a home. 

Which, I realise, is more than can be said for Sam’s apartment – not that I’m going to mention this to him any time soon – that always looks like it could be opened for inspection at the drop of a hat. It’s to his taste and he’s pleased with it – and essentially his feelings towards it are the only ones that matter a damn – but… I don’t know. As I get led through Henry and David’s home I can’t help but think of Sam and I and how we’ve never, not even on the rare occasions all those years ago when things could be considered as going perfectly smoothly, contemplated moving in together. It wasn’t for the whole ‘keeping up appearances’ charade either – there were those who worked out the true nature of our partnership and if they didn’t like it that was basically their problem, not ours – more the deep seated belief on both our parts that it wouldn’t be a good idea. What’s more, despite being older and arguably wiser, I’m still prone to having the very same feeling and, oddly, I’m not entirely sure how I feel about it.

I love Sam. He has his issues – and then some – and there are times (just call it possessing a healthy, respectful fear of déjà vu) when a little voice in the back of my head whispers that he takes me for granted and that I’m putting myself at risk of once again being walked all over, but, whatever. When all is said and done he’s still the man I want to spend my time with and, having done it for five years and not wanting to do it again, can’t imagine being separated from. We bicker and banter and have less in common than we actually have in common, but he makes me smile and deep down, even if he can’t admit to himself, I’m reasonably confident that he feels the same way about me.

Could we successfully live together though? The easy answer I think would be – probably not. Not at this stage of our lives anyway. Perhaps, assuming we live that long, if we make it to our fifties and buy something large enough to have our own very much designated space – a large country manor with a wing each springs to mind as being ideal – it would be doable. But now? My careless disregard for his thoughts on dirty clothes always having to go into clothes baskets and dishes being done with more frequency than either weekly or when I’ve ran out of clean plates (whichever comes first, I’m not fussy) would send Sam off the deep end within a month, and, in turn, I’d react just as badly at feeling as though I had to live in showroom quality perfection. The war of words and childish retaliation that would ensue would be worthy of their own reality TV show. It also wouldn’t achieve anything.

On any given week, if we’re in London we usually end up spending a couple of days together at my place, another couple at Sam’s and the rest home alone or doing our own thing. It works. I know I can go to Sam’s any time I like, while still maintaining my own ‘space’. Because we work together we see enough of each other during the day to have enough contact to not make not actually living together an issue. If we had separate jobs there’s a good chance things would be different, perhaps even different enough to make it through the ‘neat freak versus slob’ angle, but we don’t so, again, it’s not an issue. Having Phil live with me in San Diego was… convenient… in terms of having a live-in cook and – before the steroids got a hold and he became a paranoid, jealous lunatic – companion, but I never loved him and never viewed the arrangement as being long term. With Sam though it would be different from the onset. The stakes would be higher and the cost of failure too great. So… It’s just best to continue on as we have been and to not think about --what many view as the ultimate goal from the very second they enter into a relationship – the whole ‘living together’ thing.

Just because what they’ve got is clearly working incredibly well for Henry and David doesn’t mean our possibly-strange-to-most way of going about things should be a cause for concern. It mightn’t be perfect and, okay I may struggle to imagine Sam kissing my cheek as I place plates of food on the dining table – as David did to Henry as be brought in the main course – but… To each their own, right? I’m not complaining and I’m not at all envious of their, what appears to be romance-novel perfect, relationship. I’m just… not. 

Well. Okay. Maybe just a little bit. It would, after all, be nice to know where you really stood with your lover, but… Whatever. Even if I could I wouldn’t swap what I already have for it and that pretty much is all there is to it. I’m happy for Henry and David but, just call me masochistic or easily satisfied, I love my stiff-upper-lip partner and am fully prepared to lie in the bed I’ve made for myself.

My mind made up, I stop mentally comparing our relationships and – climb down out of my own head – concentrate on both enjoying the meal and the company of the three men sharing the table with me. Thankfully it’s ridiculously easy to do so and the evening is an undeniably pleasant one. The conversation covers a seemingly endless array of topics, some that elicit an opinion or comment from everyone while others only appeal to two parties and those who aren’t interested are left to alight onto yet another subject. The work of Franz Kafka, for example, not being something I have an opinion either way about – to be honest I’m not even sure if he’s an author or a director of art-house films – David and Sam contentedly blather on about what they consider his finest work while Henry and I discuss the US Navy’s latest aircraft carriers as we wait for the main course to settle sufficiently in our stomachs before tackling dessert. Then, as dessert – an apple pie that would do the finest of American diners proud – is dished up our conversations merge and we end up talking about world politics before movi g onto how hideous shopping becomes during December. 

It is, I have to say, good fun and time quite literally flies. Before we even really know it a clock is chiming ten somewhere in the house, David is turning the dishwasher on and, with fresh cups of coffee in our hands and two cats slinking along at our heels, we’re all following Henry up the stairs to the study. As David hadn’t seen any point in showing us the study – given that he knew we’d be spending enough time in there later – while he was taking us around the house, my immediate thought as Henry opens and the door and flips on the light is one of utter amazement. 

Unlike the rest of their comfy, inviting home, the study is all clean lines and state of the art efficiency. Although one wall is taken up by a truly massive bookcase, all the books on the shelves are arranged strictly by subject followed by height and not one appears to be out of place. Another wall, the one opposite the door, has a desk running the length of it. In front of the desk are two leather office chairs and on it are two desktop computers, a laptop, two printers, a scanner and, again, not so much as a pen looks out of place on it. An additional desk, more old fashioned with its faded green leather top and scuffed legs, has pens, paper and yet another a laptop scattered across it and looks as though it gets a lot of use. Two chairs are by it and Henry wheels them both over to the first desktop, the one with the nineteen inch flat screen monitor, and gestures that we should take a seat.

“I was going to use the projector for this,” he states, sitting down in front of the computer and switching on the screen, “but sadly the globe is blown and we didn’t have time to purchase a replacement. So we’ll have to make do with this, I’m afraid.”

“I think we’ll cope,” I reply as not quite daring to put my cup of coffee on the pristine desk, I resign myself to having to keep a hold on it and take a seat in the closest chair. To my great amusement my butt is barely down on the leather before Rhett is jumping onto my lap and promptly setting about making himself comfortable.

Noticing the alacrity with which my feline companion moved to stake his claim, Sam, within approximately a split second of having sat down, crosses his legs and, with his two hands clasped around it, rests his coffee cup on his knee. “That should do it,” he mutters, looking – tragically – pleased with himself for having thwarted Scarlet should she have been brave enough to have designs on his lap.

“You’re so pathetic it’s not funny,” I murmur to Sam as, not looking at all perturbed or put out, Scarlet leaps onto the desk and positions herself – her pose making her look every bit like the statues of the Egyptian cat goddess, Bast – by the monitor, where she fixes her unblinking gaze solely on Sam. “I’d watch it if I were you. She’s probably putting a curse on you even as I speak.”

“And I say, do your hardest, cat,” Sam retorts, toasting Scarlet with his cup and causing her to slowly switch her tail across both the desk and Henry’s hand as he moves the mouse around to bring up a photograph of a young woman on the computer monitor. “Now… Shhh! Let’s hear what Henry’s got to share with us.”

“It may be nothing,” Henry warns, glancing at David as he pulls up the last remaining chair in the room and sits down next him. “I just want to say that now. It may or may not be related to the oddity of Timothy Greenaway’s Rolex being found on the arm of a dead American gang banger. Quite frankly it could be… nothing… and David and I are simply clutching at straws in our desire to find other possible… oddities. But… With that waiver out in the open, I… we, actually… still find it both peculiar and interesting enough to want to share. So… It could be nothing or it could be one of the most unique signatures ever discovered.”

“Which would mean there’s a serial killer out there somewhere,” I sigh, looking at the photo of the happy, attractive woman on the screen in front of me and just knowing that the only reason she’s there is because she’s dead. It’s not a nice feeling and everything I’ve eaten sits heavily in my stomach as I wait for Henry to continue.

“It’s certainly one possibility we can’t rule out,” David replies, his expression glum as he wheels his chair closer to Henry and rests his hand lightly on his lover’s shoulder. “Come on. I think we’ve built up the tension enough.”

Looking more resigned than enthused at the self-imposed task in front of him, Henry nods and taps his finger on the edge of the monitor. “This is Emma Paterson. The photo was taken in July of last year on her honeymoon,” he states, clicking the mouse to bring up a wedding photograph. In it both Emma, a pretty woman with blonde hair worn in a bob and a glorious smile, and her husband, plainer than his new wife but made appealing by the obvious look of love in his eyes, appear vibrant and happy.

Not having expected – been prepared for – to be looking at a wedding photo, even of a couple I’ll never know, the shock of seeing one on the screen before me causes my breath to catch in my throat and, all the time trying to hide my discomfort, I glance at Sam in the hope of getting either a reassuring smile or a small, surreptitious pat to my knee. His own gaze glued to the screen, I get neither and have to settle for looking down at Rhett and concentrating on stroking my hand along his soft fur. To be honest, weddings being my own personal Kryptonite and all that, I’m a little hurt by Sam’s lack of acknowledgement but, not wanting to draw attention to myself for fear of having to offer up an explanation for something I don’t even like remembering let alone having to put it into words, I remain silent and force myself to listen to Henry as he continues his explanation.

“Emma was twenty-three years old and both lived and worked, as a primary school teacher, in Glasgow. She was gregarious, a real people person, and no one close to her had ever known of her suffering from depression. Teaching was her passion. She’d only ever wanted to be a teacher and had vowed to do whatever she could to give children the very best start to their education. No one had a bad word to say against her and over three hundred people attended her funeral.” Henry pauses here and, hearing the soft click of the mouse, I tentatively lift my head and am – in a sad way that I’m slightly ashamed of – relieved to see that the photo on the screen has changed to that of an on line news article reporting on her funeral.

“It says there that she committed suicide,” Sam points out quietly. “We were under the impression…”

“It may take a little explaining,” David cuts in, “but we think it’s worth it. So… Have patience. It’ll all be clear soon enough.”

“Emma’s body was discovered in the front seat of her Mini in October of last year,” Henry states, picking up where he left of. “She’d died from carbon monoxide poisoning and giving the pipe leading from her exhaust to the inside of the car and the fact that the car was still running when she was found by her husband, the official coroner’s ruling was suicide. And, on the face of the facts, it really was a cut and dry case. Despite there not being a note and no one having seen any signs that Emma was feeling anything other than her usual happy-go-lucky self, it was pretty clearly a suicide. There were no signs of a struggle and no evidence at the scene of there being another party to her death. The husband, Ralph, a high school teacher, was in Edinburgh with a class of students at the time, so even though the police did toy briefly with, unimaginatively, I might add, turning their attention to the spouse as a possible suspect, he had an unbreakable alibi and they just left it at that. Emma’s death was officially put down as suicide, case, such as it was, closed.”

“But you think there’s more to it?” I prompt, interested to hear where Henry’s going with his tale. “From what you’ve told us so far though I’m not seeing any particular reason to question the handling of the case. People are unpredictable creatures. Just because she seemed happy doesn’t necessarily mean she wasn’t capable of killing herself.”

Nodding his agreement with what I’ve just said, Henry brings a new photo, this time of a delicate gold cross hanging from a gold chain, up onto the screen. “This was found around her neck,” he murmurs. “Eighteen carat gold and made around the turn of the century in Paris. Neither Ralph nor members of Emma’s immediate family had ever seen it before and all were of the opinion that even if she’d received it as a gift she wouldn’t have worn it because not only wasn’t she religious but also because she only ever wore silver or white gold jewellery. Her late grandmother, with whom she’d been very close, had left her engagement and wedding rings to Emma but because they were gold she wouldn’t, despite the love she felt for her grandmother and the pride she felt at being entrusted with such precious pieces, wear them. Ralph said she was funny like that. Their own wedding rings had to be white gold and she wouldn’t even wear gold toned costume jewellery.”

“Yet a gold cross was found on her body,” Sam murmurs, glancing at me for the first time since Henry started talking and frowning. “The strangeness of that alone, I suppose, strikes a few immediate similarities with Tim’s Rolex being found on White Boy.” Turning back to face Henry and David, he adds, “Have you been able to track down the rightful owner of the cross?”

“Not yet,” David replies, “but rest assured we’re working on it. Assuming here that these deaths are in fact linked, and there’s still no guarantee that they are, they’ve all taken place in different jurisdictions. London, Glasgow, New Orleans… This of course means different authorities being in charge of the cases and, as such, no central database that we can just search for similar cases through. At the moment we’re just flying by the seat of our pants and, when we stray across something we feel might be relevant, just running with it until we hit a dead end. So far, sadly, the cross is one such dead end.”

“But wait, there is nonetheless more,” Henry interjects as, with the feline equivalent of a sigh, Scarlet flops down onto the desk and, closing her eyes, drapes her tail over her nose. “Moving now to Liverpool,” he continues, bringing up on the screen a photo of a somewhat drab looking middle-aged woman. With her grey hair scraped back into a bun and unsmiling face she doesn’t appear to have a lot going for her and I wonder if she really was as miserable as she seems in life or whether she simply didn’t much like having her photo taken.

“The woman you’re looking at on the screen is Marjorie Fuller, a forty-nine year old spinster who worked as a bank teller for Barclays. Despite the unbecoming photograph giving you the impression otherwise, her co-workers all say she was a lovely, kind hearted woman who didn’t deserve to die the way she did.”

“And how was that?” I ask, so caught up in everything Henry’s telling us that I wish there was a way to speed him up instead of having to wait – with mounting impatience – for him to get to the ever-important connection between Emma and Marjorie. “It wasn’t another apparent suicide, was it?”

Shaking his head, David beats Henry to the answer. “No. This time it was an apparent mugging gone horribly wrong. She was walking home from the bank late one evening in January of this year and, according to the police report, was attacked by a mugger. Not wanting to give up her bag, she struggled and the mugger retaliated by stabbing her in the chest. It was a fatal blow and she was found later that night by a man walking his dog.”

“Interestingly, despite the theory of her death having been a result of a mugging gone bad,” Henry murmurs, picking up the story, “her bag, containing both her purse and mobile, was discovered lying only metres away from the body. Cash, and she’d only just been to the ATM to withdraw her money for the week, was still in her purse and everything.”

“Maybe the mugger panicked when he stabbed her and just decided to cut his losses and flee,” Sam offers. “It’s happened before.”

“Mmm… Thing is though, there was something missing from her purse,” Henry responds, changing the picture on the screen to an artist’s image of a small horse shoe hanging from a short length of what appears to broken chain. “This, according to her brother, belonged to their grandfather. He’d carried it with him while he was fighting in World War One and, crediting it with being a lucky charm that saved his life when all his friends had fallen, it was considered something of a family heirloom. Marjorie carried it, in her purse, with her at all times. Yet when the brother went to retrieve her belongings he noticed straight away that it was missing. It not really having any monetary value, the police weren’t particularly interested and I suspect only wrote it down in their report to shut the brother up.”

“Okay. I’ll bite,” I interject, finishing my now quite cool coffee and, not knowing where else to put it, placing the cup carefully on the floor. “What’s the link between Emma and Marjorie? Emma died first, the gold cross found on her body came from an as yet still unknown source and, forgive me for stating the obvious here, even if Marjorie’s grandfather’s lucky horse shoe has popped up on another body that still won’t offer a link between the two women.”

“The link isn’t a gold one, it’s silver,” David replies matter-of-factly as, nodding his acceptance that the time for the grand unveil has come, Henry once again changes the image on the computer monitor and an evidence photo of a silver bracelet appears before us. “What you’re looking at there is a Pandora bracelet. They’re apparently quite the thing at the moment, a more modern take on the old charm bracelet, if you like. The charms, instead of having a link that you use to attach them to the bracelet, have a hollowed out core that allows you to simply slide them on. They don’t need to be soldered shut and, depending on your collection of charms, you can change the look of your bracelet whenever you like. The one on the screen is Emma’s. It was her wedding gift from her husband. She never took it off and her favourite charm was that of a couple on their wedding day.”

Clearly being well versed in the subtle nuances of putting on a successful slide show, Henry brings up a photo of the wedding couple charm just mentioned by David and, suddenly looking tired, gestures at it airily. “This, needless to say, is the charm. And, although I didn’t mention it earlier, it was missing from her bracelet when they found her body. The bracelet was still on her wrist, and all the other charms were still on it, it was just this one that was missing.”

“Oh…” His expression one of utter concentration, Sam leans forward and gazes at Henry expectantly. “That charm, it showed up on Marjorie, yes?”

“You’ve got it in one,” Henry sighs as the picture of the charm is replaced by another evidence photo of a silver bracelet. This one looks different from the first though in that it’s full of charms, not three quarters empty like Emma’s, and not all of them are silver. Along with a couple of gold ones I count three green glass and two purple glass ones and the overall style appears entirely different. “The bracelet you’re now looking at is Marjorie’s. It’s a Troll bracelet. Many accuse Troll of merely being Pandora copycats, but the truth of the matter is Troll were established in the seventies and were actually around first. Some don’t care who make the charms so long as they like them, while others are more obsessive compulsive and won’t have anything to do with a charm unless it’s by… their… maker. Ralph was the only person to buy charms for Emma’s and he didn’t even know there were other manufactures of charms that would fit her bracelet, so that’s why all of hers were authentic Pandora charms. Marjorie, on the other hand, was old school and would only wear Troll branded charms. Her brother said he mistakenly bought her a Pandora charm for her last birthday and, despite seeing her every few days, he never saw it again after she’d opened it and scowled at him.”

“Yet the wedding charm was discovered on Marjorie’s bracelet,” Sam murmurs with a low whistle. “So, let me get this right here, if you’re correct in your thinking here… Emma’s suicide was actually a murder and her killer both removed a charm from her bracelet and placed a necklace that wasn’t hers around her neck. He then, three months later, murdered Marjorie in such a way that it was made to look like a mugging and… not only stole a gold horse shoe from her purse but also placed Emma’s charm on her bracelet. That… That’s just plain weird.”

“No weirder than Tim’s Rolex travelling to New Orleans,” I reply, seeing the link even if I can’t pretend to understand it. “Don’t forget an E-shaped diamond earring was missing from White Boy’s body. Perhaps that too will just materialise some place it shouldn’t be at some point. But… Okay. Some fruit loop playing head fuck with personal items I can kind of… sort of… get. But, the victims? Two women, two men. A spook, a gang banger, a teacher and a bank teller. That, and again with being the one to state the obvious here, just doesn’t make any sense.”

“We just said we had something to share, not that we could make any actual sense out of it,” David responds, sliding his hand down Henry’s arm and, gently taking over control of the mouse, shutting the computer down. “Henry has a friend in the Liverpool pathology department though who was able to run a couple of tests on the Pandora charm found on Marjorie’s bracelet and the DNA on it came back as Emma Paterson’s. So… There definitely seems to be something to it. I’d forgotten about White Boy’s missing earring though, so we’ll add that to our list of things to watch out for.”

Standing up, Henry stretches and, after ruffling David’s hair, rests his backside gingerly against the edge of the desk so he can face us. “Which means we’ve got three things to look for now. The earring, the original owner of the gold cross, and Marjorie’s horse shoe. It may take a while, but I bet they all show up.” 

“Don’t forget that cheap and nasty Casio watch found on Tim’s wrist,” Sam adds morosely. “That makes four known victims and, always assuming this pick and mix signature we think we’ve stumbled onto is indeed what he does, another possible four waiting out there to be discovered.”

I don’t want to say it, but as it’s popped into my head and I’m sure everyone else is thinking it anyway, I decide I may as well be the one to give voice to it. “And on those four there could another four anomalies leading to other victims and…”

“So on and so forth,” David finishes, looking as glum as both Sam and I sounded. “We know. We also know that if what we’re seeing really is the case, that there’s a killer out there perhaps of the like never encountered before. No M.O., seemingly random criteria for selecting his victims, an obvious ability to travel, intelligent enough to never leave any clues… To be honest with you my skin crawls just thinking about it. What’s more, if it hadn’t been for Sam noticing that Greenaway’s watch had be swapped, who knows when the link might have been picked up?”

“So, now what?” I query as, waking up, Rhett yawns and digs his claws into the denim of my jeans. “Hey! That’s enough of that. While I’m perfectly happy to provide a bed for you I draw the line at being your very own pincushion!”

Rhett’s assault on my thigh and my reaction being enough of a welcome diversion to lift the mood in the room, everyone laughs and David comes over to take the Siamese from my lap. “Allow me,” he murmurs, picking Rhett up and holding him against his chest. “Cat wrangling, I can do. Answering your question though… Sorry. That I’m not so confident about.”

“I think we give it another couple of days to see what we’re able to put together before deciding who the best agency is to present it to,” Sam states with a small shrug. “We’ve all got contacts we can casually put the word out to for assistance and I say that’s what we should do. I still know a few people at Interpol and S.O.C.A., Chris, you could get in contact with the B. A. U. at your old stomping ground, Quantico and, Henry, I’m sure between your contacts in the Met and fellow pathologists around the place you’ll be able to come up with something that puts our efforts to shame.”

Nodding, Henry tilts his head in his partner’s direction. “Don’t forget David,” he replies with a smile. “As a lawyer he’d have more contacts than the rest of us put together.”

“Sounds like between us we could solve the J.F.K. assassination conspiracy once and for all.” David responds, returning Henry’s smile with one of his own. “I think you’re right though, Sam. We need to see what more we can come up with before we share our theory and your idea of sending out feelers while we continue our own research sounds as good a way of going about it as any. So… If it’s okay with everyone, how about we do just that and meet back here in a week’s time?”

It’s on the tip of my tongue to pass comment on how every good dinner party needs to end with an agreement to look into the work of a serial killer but, as merely thinking it is bad enough, I remain silent.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

“Oh God, Chris. You should see yourself from where I am,” Backup announces with a truly annoying degree of chirpiness as she follows my slow progress up the stairs. “You’re moving like an old man.”

“I told you not to come around,” I mutter as, making it to the landing, I come to a much needed stop and, quickly bringing the ever present tissue to my mouth, cough loudly. “I’m not pleasant company at the moment, am probably contagious and I honestly think you’d have more fun standing in a post office queue than you will being with me.”

“Nonsense. Besides, I’m here now. Oh, and before your martyr routine gets the better of you, unlike someone who will remain nameless I had the flu inoculation. So… Suck it up.” Joining me on the landing, Backup looks me up and down and pulls a face. “You look like shit.”

Choking back another cough, I roll my eyes and head for the living area. “Don’t beat around the bush or anything,” I retort, making a beeline for the sofa and, with my head spinning from the exertion of having made it both down and up the stairs in order to let Backup in, slump down on it with a sigh of relief. “If you must know you should actually consider yourself lucky as it was only your advance-warning phone call that got me out of my pyjamas.”

“Given that I doubt they’d have made what I’m looking at any worse, I suspect I’d have coped,” Backup replies drily as she takes her coat off and drapes it over the back of an armchair. “It’s like a sauna in here,” she adds, frowning as she watches me pull a blanket over myself before stretching out on the sofa. “You, however, obviously don’t think so. Have you been to the doctor?”

I toy with the idea of telling her that, given how long I’d been wearing them for, she probably wouldn’t have been able to cope all that well with the sight of me in my pyjamas – because, hey, I was beginning to not cope all that well either, even if it did have more to do with their aroma than what they looked like – but, well, it just strikes me as being far too much effort. “What for?” I settle for querying as I gesture at the coffee table and its mess of pills, cups, water bottles and tissues. “It’s only a flu and, as you can see, I have everything I could possibly need at my fingertips.”

Picking up a magazine from the floor, Backup fans herself with it as she settles herself in the armchair. “I can think of one thing you’re missing.”

“Oh yeah, what’s that?”

“A male nurse to tend to your every need and to ensure that you don’t do anything stupid like think you’re better when you’re not.”

“Uh-huh. If you’ve got the number for one give it here and I’ll book his services on the spot.”

“While, and I hasten to add here because I don’t want to make you laugh for fear of setting of a coughing attack, I’m not thinking in terms of tight, white nurse’s costumes, you know who should be here looking after you as well as I do.”

“What is it with you and costumes, huh? First the French Maid one and now a nurse? I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to look Spencer in the eye again.”

Narrowing her eyes, Backup gives me a warning look. “Don’t try to change the subject. Sam should be here looking after you and you know it.”

“I don’t need looking after,” I mumble, avoiding Backup’s gaze by busying myself throwing my used tissue in the bin I’ve dragged next to the sofa for this very purpose and grabbing a fresh one. “It’s just the flu. Not ‘man-flu’ as some smart ass at the office suggested when I got sent home the other day, just… the flu. I’ll survive.”

“Of course you’ll survive,” Backup responds, throwing the magazine onto the coffee table and pulling off her jumper. “Whether I’ll survive the tropical conditions in here remains, however, to be seen. But… Back to the point I’m trying to make. Where’s Sam? Regardless of the fact you mightn’t be scintillating company at the moment and, oh, okay, look like death warmed up, he should be here.”

“He sent pills,” I reply with a truly half hearted shrug that causes my entire body to issue forth with an aching complaint. I don’t want to be having this conversation, not because I don’t want to talk about Sam and how I can’t shake the feeling he’s been in ‘active-avoidance-mode’ ever since going to Henry and David’s for dinner, but because, simply put, I really do feel how I apparently look. I feel, in fact, like complete and utter crap. My body and head ache, my chest feels as though a great weight is pressing down on it, I spend more time coughing than I do not coughing and my nose drips like a Goddamn tap. Forty-eight hours ago I felt fine. Sure, my throat felt a little scratchy, but that was it. Then everything seemed to hit at once and it was all I could do to survive the drive home.

“He sent pills?” Backup echoes, her expression a curious combination of disbelief and annoyance. “My, how caring of him. I don’t know I could have dared question his level of… caring. He delivered them personally, I take it? I ask because I can’t believe he’d have been able to leave you on your own after seeing how awful you look. ”

“Again with not beating around the bush,” I wheeze as another coughing fit wracks my body. “He… Oh God, I’m so over this… He sent the office courier with the pills. Vitamins, cold and flu tablets, painkillers, all the good stuff. It… It was very thoughtful of him.”

Scowling, Backup stands up and shakes her head. “Thoughtful… That’s not exactly the word I’d have used but fine, whatever. It was… thoughtful… of him.”

“Thoughtful… is working for me.” Groaning, I lean forward to pick up a half empty bottle of water and empty it in one long gulp before slumping back against the arm of the sofa and letting the bottle slip from my fingers to the floor. “Ooops.”

“Mmm… Ooops.” Shaking her head again, Backup picks the bottle up and throws it into the bin. “Despite the heat in here I find, given that it’s too early and I’m driving for a proper drink, I’m in need of a coffee. Would you like one?” 

“Please. I’m sorry though, I should have asked…”

“You didn’t want a visitor and you’re sick,” Backup interrupts with a smile as she gives my shoulder a quick pat on her way towards the kitchen, “so, relax. I’m not going to write you off my Christmas card list for just this once being a bad host.”

Although it’s true and I really didn’t want a visitor, I nonetheless don’t want to come across as too out of it and, hoping that they’ll do the trick, pick up the closest packet of cold and flu tablets. I don’t think I’m due any more pills just yet, but at the same time, seeing as I’m not entirely sure whether it’s morning or afternoon – time sure does blur when all you do is sleep, cough, and take up space on the sofa – I just as easily could be. Either way, given that they’re fast acting and should allow me to at least feign concentration for the remaining duration of Backup’s visit, I pop two of the pills out of their blister pack and dry swallow them. This, and the ensuing coughing fit, done and out of the way, I pull my blanket up to my chin and, with a shuddery sigh, close my eyes.

Having too much on my plate already thanks both to being ill and the serial killer case that, really, has nothing to do with either me or the agency I work for yet which hangs over my head like a constant black cloud, I have to confess to not being all that bothered by Sam’s current behaviour. I’d like him to be with me and, okay, the whole sending his equivalent of a care package via the courier thing was pretty pathetic, but at the end of the day – at the moment at least – I honestly just don’t care. He can do his thing and have his little freak out over tripping himself up with misconceptions (that could easily be put to bed if he broke a habit of a lifetime and, gasp, actually spoke to me about them) and, again, I don’t care. I’m too sick to be able to try to talk some sense into him and, while I’m at it, I’m also too sick to have it in me to successfully mount a campaign in my defence. If he wants to believe that I left Henry and David’s with the idea in my head that their obviously happy relationship and nice ‘n’ neat little household built on mutual love and a willingness to work through their differences was what I was going to start expecting from him, then… Whatever. More power to him. Hell. I’m not even surprised by his reaction. In fact, I knew it was coming when I dropped him off afterwards and instead of a kiss goodbye all I got was a grunted, ‘see you at work’. 

So… Yeah. Whatever. He can keep his mouth shut and enjoy the cold, dull world he’s made for himself out of his delusions and, if he doesn’t come around first, I’ll see what I can be bothered to do to try to make him see sense when I’m feeling more with it. I’m not giving up, and I’m still prepared to do what I have to in order to get through to him, just… not now. Even in my currently addled state, I know how Sam’s mind works and I’m pragmatic enough to be – relatively – confident he’ll get over it and in a couple of days it’ll be as though nothing had ever happened. I don’t plan to simply sit back and take Sam’s… flights of fantasy… for ever, but for now, barely six months into a relationship that was as dead as the proverbial dodo for five years, I’m content enough with how things are going. Things like this are little more than a bump in the road. God knows we’ve navigated through far worse.

Forcing my eyes open so I don’t fall asleep, I yawn, cough, blow my nose and, in general, just feel sorry for myself. I can’t remember when I last felt so wretched – naturally, that is. The whole debacle with Phil doesn’t count – and I wonder if I’m going to have to get off my high horse in relation to dragging my butt to the doctor’s. There’s nothing that can be done for a flu, and that’s what I’m firmly convinced I have, but sometimes it’s just reassuring to have a professional agree with you. Besides, if I’m not feeling any better by tomorrow I’ll probably have to get a medical certificate to wave at Horvath as proof that I’m not just taking the time off to get my Christmas shopping done. Tomorrow is another day though and I’ll see how I go then.

The pills kicking in as Backup returns carrying both the coffee and a fresh bottle of water, I take the cup from her with a smile of thanks. “Seeing as I don’t know how long I’ll be able to maintain this façade of health and concentration,” I murmur as she places the water on the coffee table before settling herself in the armchair, “if you’re wanting to be brought up-to-date on what we’ve been able to add to our freaky serial killer case I think we’d better get on with it.”

“If you’re not feeling up to it then it doesn’t matter,” Backup replies, toeing her slip-on shoes off and curling her legs up onto the seat. “I can always give Sam a call and make him tell me. I doubt he’d be able to make it as interesting as you’re usually capable of but, whatever, info is info. Just let me finish my coffee then I’ll leave you to die in peace.”

“I’m not dying,” I protest, sounding – given the hoarseness of my voice and how I immediately follow my response up with a spot of coughing – even to my own ears as though I don’t entirely believe it myself, “and I’m fine to bring you up to speed. It’ll just be interspersed with the odd cough and snuffle, that’s all. If you can put up with that then, seriously, I’m good to go.”

“Tell you what,” Backup replies, her expression dubious, as though she’s honestly expecting me to pass out at any second. “If you can tell me about the Christmas tree I saw against the wall outside your bedroom without sounding as though you’re having an asthma attack or losing your voice then I’ll let you tell me.”

Startled by her sudden and not to mention random change in course, I slowly take a sip of coffee and try my best to appear unbothered at where she’s ended up. “What do you want to know about it?” I query softly. “It… It’s just a tree.”

“If that’s just a tree, I’m a Barbie doll,” Backup retorts, the tone of her voice still light hearted enough to tell me she hasn’t noticed my unease. “Come on, Chris. What’s the story? And the baubles spread out over the dining table, they look pretty spectacular too. And old. I don’t think I’ve ever seen any quite like it before.”

“That’s because you probably haven’t.” I direct my response to the coffee cup as I don’t want to see Backup’s reaction when the moment she wishes she’d never stumbled onto this particular subject crosses her face. I could lie, make up some bullshit that would sound believable enough without causing discomfort or regret, but I honestly think that would be even harder than simply biting the bullet and going with the truth. Perhaps if I was feeling better my imagination would have been able to kick in and save the day and I could have rattled off something viable, but… I’m sick, I feel miserable enough as it is already, and… She asked for it, she can have it.

“The tree belonged to Laura, my sister,” I murmur, idly running my finger around the rim of the cup as I blink back the tears I can feel automatically welling in my eyes. “My parents bought it, if I remember correctly my father was in awe of how much it, a ‘Goddamn fake tree’ cost, for Paige’s first Christmas. It… It was meant to last the family… Well, it was meant to become a family tradition and for Paige and… uh… any siblings that came along… to grow up with it. That… That’s why my father allowed my mother to spend so much on it. He always was a firm believer in the you get what you pay for motto.”

“Oh… Oh God, Chris…” Backup releases a slow, shaky breath. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean…”

“After the wedding it, like everything else, came to me,” I continue as though Backup had never spoken because, now that I’ve started, I just want to get the tale over and done with. “Because Laura had been so delighted with it and, I don’t know, maybe because I could remember Paige sitting under it Christmas morning and being more transfixed by the baubles and the wrapping paper than her five million presents, I… I couldn’t get rid of it and when I moved over here it just came with me.”

“Chris… You don’t have to…”

“You haven’t seen it before because this is the first time I’ve unpacked it. You remember don’t you how all hell always seemed to break loose at Christmas time when we worked together, yeah? Well, it’s because it was always so busy and I hardly ever got to spend any time at home that I never got around to putting it up. Then, when I went back to the States I left it here in the back, junk room that was kept locked so those renting the place couldn’t get in there. Truth be told I’d forgotten all about it. Seeing the lovely tree the King and David had though, it made me think I should perhaps make the effort to get one and… and then I remembered it. So I thought, why not? A tree is, after all, just a tree.”

“This tree isn’t just any old tree,” Backup replies faintly. “Look, Chris. I really am sorry for having brought it up. You should have just told me to mind my own business.”

“Why?” Looking up from my cup at last, I glance at Backup and, finding her looking across at me intently, give a lacklustre shrug. “It’s just a tree. One that, granted, has something of a special history, but at the end of the day it’s still just a tree. Talking about it won’t change anything.” It never does, even though I try to avoid it at all costs. “I got called into the office just as I’d finished putting it up and then came down with… this… so, as you saw, I haven’t had time to decorate it yet. Oh, and the baubles? Most of them are glass and have been in the family since the turn of the last century. I remember that they were one of the things that always travelled with us from base to base, one of my mother’s pride and joys, if you like. I… I feel as though I should pass them down to my cousins as they’ve got children to better keep the tradition alive, but… but I just can’t bring myself to do it yet.”

“There’s plenty of time for that,” Backup responds with a warm smile. “The decorations are yours and you should enjoy them. If your flu lingers and you don’t feel well enough to put them up, and, if you’d like, of course, just say the word and I’ll rustle someone up to help you. Spencer, although he won’t admit it, I’m sure would love to get his hands on a tree not… tainted… by the questionable taste of a three year old for far too much purple tinsel so, trust me, it wouldn’t be putting anyone out. And, hey, I know I for one would like to see the tree done up in all of its finery.”

Thankful to Backup for not making a big deal out of my explanation about the tree and what it obviously means to me, I nod and return her smile. “I may just have to take you up on that offer,” I state, actually meaning it. “Now, assuming I passed your test, how about I move on to telling you about the additional victims our combined research has unearthed? By my reckoning I’ve probably got about another half an hour or so before the pills give up the ghost so, unless you’re desperate to hear Sam’s take on things, I say we should just get on with it.”

“Are you sure?” Backup queries, looking, it just has to be said, relieved at the thought of moving on from what she no doubt believes was a faux pas in bringing the tree up in the first place. “If you’re not feeling up to it I’ll…”

“If you can stop doubting me for a second, I’m up to it,” I interject. “The more time you waste on worrying whether I’m up to it though the more likely your dire predictions are to come true and I’ll flake out just as I’m getting to the good stuff. So… The ball’s in your court. Either shut up and let me tell you or run the risk of leaving none the wiser than when you got here.”

Raising an eyebrow, Backup laughs and slowly shakes her head. “Anyone ever tell you that you have a way with words? But… Okay, okay! Enough already. Go on then, get on with sharing all the latest discoveries with me.”

Satisfied that I’ve managed to get my way -- even though I do a good job of disguising this by coughing for at least a minute before I’m able to start – I stretch out comfortably on the sofa and proceed to bring Backup up to speed on what we’ve able to dig up since leaving the King’s five nights ago. Starting with the gold cross and chain found on Emma Paterson’s body, I tell her about its original owner, Simone Charpiat, a seventy-two year old Parisian great grandmother who was killed in an apparent hit and run two months before Emma’s death. The chain was from her late mother and, just like Emma’s Pandora bracelet, she never took it off. No witnesses ever came forward in respect to the accident and, as there were no suspicious circumstances, although it’s officially listed as unsolved the gendarme have effectively closed the file on the matter. Found on the body, tucked into pocket of her coat, was an Irish linen handkerchief with the initials M. S. monogrammed on it in red silk. Simone’s family weren’t able to place the initials but, as she’d always been something of a bower-bird, picking up bits and pieces from here and there, they never thought anything of it. It was ‘just a handkerchief’.

A handkerchief, however, as it turns out that once belonged to one Maurice Shepard, a professor of psychology from New York. Maurice, a man with expensive tastes who liked the finer things in life (like Irish linen handkerchiefs), was found murdered in his Manhattan apartment six weeks before the unknown vehicle ran over Simone Charpiat outside her home in Vaucresson, Paris. Keeping in line with all of our apparent serial killer’s victims having suffered a different method of death, Maurice was, and there’s really no other way of putting it, butchered. The coroner listed the official cause of death as exsanguination as a result of multiple knife wounds and trauma experienced by the body. What he didn’t list though was whether he believed the victim was still alive when the murderer, with precise cuts rarely seen outside of hospital operating theatres, began to remove his internal organs and place them neatly lined up on the floor by his body. And, although the police report passes comment on the knock-off Nike socks found on Maurice’s feet as being completely out of character for the renowned label-whore, the oddity was never followed up on. Nor was a suspect, despite the severity of the crime and media attention, ever located. 

Proving that our killer – or, possibly scarier still, as David mention in an email, a group of killers deliberately passing on items from their victims to further mess with the heads of law enforcement agents the world over – likes to constantly mix things up, the socks found on Maurice in Manhattan, New York, came from a twenty-nine year old resident of Chatham, Kent. Charles Smith, a street stall vendor who specialised in knock-offs of popular sporting label clothing and small time criminal, died when he fell from a ladder and broke his neck. A high alcohol content in his blood, no witnesses and nothing on his body to indicate foul play made, as far as the authorities were concerned, for an automatic accidental death ruling. Not being a particularly popular individual, no one was much bothered by his death and nothing was made of the keyring for the Italian football team, Juventus, found in the pocket of his shorts. This despite the fact he was a rabid Arsenal fan, had never been out of England and viewed anything European with about as much affection as a Man United fan views a Man City fan (and vice versa). It was simply listed as a ‘personal effect’ and that was the end of it.

If Sam’s contact in Interpol is correct though – and given the apparent randomness of all the other links we’ve come across, we’re apt to believe that she is – the Juventus keyring actually belonged to Marco Lombardi, an eighteen year old Roman who was murdered on the Costa del Sol while holidaying there with his two brothers in August of 2008. Despite his older brother being adamant he’d had it with him earlier in the day (as Marco had attached the key to their hire car on to the keyring and was the groups’ designated driver), the keyring hadn’t been found on his body and, the police being surprisingly cluey for a change, had actually formally listed it as missing. Marco’s murder was – and probably still is – suspected to be the work of a local killer who had already struck twice earlier in the summer. 

Although the first two victims were both young females, one Scottish and one French, Marco had been killed by the exact same method – strangled by a plain black silk scarf – and the authorities simply attributed his death to the same killer. There was no apparent motive behind any of the killings, none of the victims showed any signs of having been sexually assaulted, no clues other than the scarf – always the same, of no particular brand and readily available from a myriad of Ebay sellers scattered throughout China – were found on the body, all were foreigners in the area on holiday – there were enough similarities to lump them all together. Neither of the female victims had had anything taken from them though and nor had anything out of the ordinary been found on them. A diamante embellished, hot pink fake fingernail had, however, been found tucked into the heel of Marco’s left shoe. And, again, while this had been noted in the police report nothing was ever really made of it. It was just a fake nail. No DNA was found on it, lots of women wore them – although it was noted that the shade of pink was not one they were able to track down to a local source – and, when all was said and done Marco was a hot blooded young Italian male who had probably had a different conquest every night and the nail had probably just came from one of them.

“And there you have it,” I finish, placing my empty cup on the coffee table and, my throat dry from all my talking and coughing, picking up the bottle of water. “You now know as much as the rest of us. We still haven’t tracked down where either the fake nail or the Casio watch found on Tim’s body originally come from and, yes, we suspect there’s even more victims than those we’ve so far been able to highlight.”

“My God, what a nightmare,” Backup replies, her solemn expression changing to one of concern as she watches me down half the water in the bottle in one long mouthful. “Hmm… I could say something about you not being as up for that as you thought, but… I’ll be good and will simply see if I’ve got everything straight. So far you’ve managed to come up with eight victims…”

“Uh-huh. Five males and three females.”

“Spanning in age…”

“From eighteen to seventy-two.”

“And… from all over the place, yes?”

“Mmm-hmm… New York, New Orleans, London, Chatham, Paris, Liverpool, Glasgow, Costa de Sol… Nightmare was a good word to use, actually. All different jurisdictions…”

“No two murders the same…”

“Not to mention the deaths listed as suicide or accidental…” Suddenly feeling as though I’m melting, I gulp down the rest of the water and throw off the blanket. “It’s just… Oh hell, Backup, I don’t know what it is,” I add, swinging my legs off the sofa and sitting up. “This is just beyond my comprehension. I mean, I’ve dealt with killers before, and God knows I know the world is full of assholes, but this? This is something else again. If it’s not just one psycho then it’s a bunch of them sharing trophies to place on their victim by way of a red herring and… and…” And clearly it’s all too much for me because, my head spinning from having sat up too fast, I start to cough like I can’t ever recall having coughed before.

Too focussed on trying to rein in the out of control cough that feels as though it’s being torn from my lungs, I’m not aware that Backup has even moved from the armchair until she’s sitting next to me on the sofa and rubbing slow circles on my back with her hand. “Okay, Chris,” she states very much matter-of-factly as I eventually stop coughing long enough to be able to hear her. “Enough is enough. You sound dreadful and I think you need to see a doctor.”

“I’m fine,” I croak, shifting away from her hand and, although it’s just about the last thing I actually feel like doing, standing up. It’s just one of those time honoured, possibly more so for the male of the species, things. When ill and faced with concern, get crabby and defensive. It’s… instinctual. Logic says that the person offering you concerned advice is correct and that you should listen to them, but… that’s like admitting defeat. I know I’m… under the weather… but sick enough to go to a doctor? Really? I don’t think so. Doctors are for serious ailments, not just a stupid annoying cough and general aches and pains. “I just need to rest.”

“Don’t be silly,” Backup admonishes, as she gets up and, frowning, faces me. “You could have Swine Flu or pneumonia, both are going around at the moment, and I really think you’d benefit from being checked out.”

“I’m fine,” I repeat, feeling anything but as, on legs that don’t even really feel as though they’re connected to the rest of me, I back away from Backup. “Besides, waiting rooms are always full of sick people and I might get something worse from one of them.”

Looking astonished that I’d even say such a stupid thing, Backup sighs in obvious exasperation and glares at me. “Oh for God’s sake, don’t be so pathetic. If you’re afraid of catching the plague from the waiting room phone for an in-home consult. My doctor does them. If you’d like I could even…”

“I don’t need to see a doctor,” I mutter, moving to the back of the sofa so I can place my hands on it to steady myself. “Seriously. I’m fine. If it makes you feel any better, you were probably right and I shouldn’t have insisted on bringing you up to date with our case that… uh… isn’t really a case, but… Whatever. What’s done is done. I’ll have a lie down when you’re gone and will be fine.”

“Now is not the time for your damn stubborn streak to kick in,” Backup complains as she slips her shoes back on and picks up her coat. “In fact, Chris, I think you’re being an idiot. But… as I have my own doctor-phobic male at home I know that this isn’t a fight I’m going to win, so… Have it your way. If you don’t want to go to the doctor, then don’t. See if I care.”

Something in the tone of Backup’s voice penetrating the fog of stubbornness in my head, I flash her a weak smile and shrug. “Sorry,” I murmur, keeping one hand on the back of the sofa at all times as I move around it to get closer to her. “I’m behaving like a petulant child. Just… put it down to a side effect from the cold and flu tablets and don’t hold it against me.”

“Promise me you’ll see a doctor if you’re still feeling this bad in the morning and I’ll consider forgiving you,” Backup replies as, yet another frown crossing her face, she looks me up and down and shakes her head. “Actually… I’m not kidding here, Chris. You really don’t look so hot. Maybe I should…”

“I promise I’ll see someone if I don’t feel any better tomorrow,” I interrupt, drawing on my last reserves of energy and walking towards the stairs. “I also promise that I’ll go straight to bed once I’ve seen you off. Scout’s honour, and all that.”

Too busy coughing to hear Backup’s response, I ignore the strange, airy sensation in my head and chest and start down the stairs. Halfway down, and well and truly regretting my decision to say my farewells at the front door, I miss a step and my last conscious thought as the floor suddenly rushes up to meet me is that it looks like I’m going to be seeing a doctor today after all. 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Consciousness being a tricky devil to get a firm hold on, I give up on trying to convince my eyes to remain open and throw my limited – very limited – resources single-mindedly at the task of attempting to make sense of the less than thrilling position I find myself in. Although I have no sense of smell thanks to my sinuses being blocked and I can’t keep my eyes open long enough to actually focus on my surroundings, I know for an unmistakeable fact that I’m in hospital. I know this for a number of reasons. 

One, despite the mattress I’m lying on having no give whatsoever, I’m in absolutely no pain. I can feel a tight bandage around my left wrist and another around my, propped up under the scratchy sheet, right ankle – mementoes from my tumble down the stairs – but other than that, nothing. My head feels heavy, and I half suspect that if I was made to sit up I’d probably vomit, but it doesn’t hurt, and nor does my chest. This tells me I’m pumped full of hard core painkillers and most likely antibiotics as well. Two, although my eyes are closed I know the room I’m in is lit by fluorescent lighting because instead of full darkness I can ‘see’ a faint metallic orange colour and that’s another sign I’ve always attributed to hospitals the world over. Motels, too. But motel beds never give the impression of being this far off the floor and the sheets are never tucked in this tightly. Three, despite not being in any pain I nonetheless feel as though I’ve been run over by a truck and I hope my free fall down the stairs didn’t scare Backup too much.

Speaking of…

“Well I never,” Backup comments softly, her voice coming from somewhere to my right as the door opens and someone steps into the room. “You’ve been able to find time in your busy schedule of avoidance to put in an appearance. I’m impressed, I really am.”

Knowing the newcomer is Sam simply by reading between the lines of Backup’s sarcasm, I’m suddenly thankful that my eyes are closed and don’t think I even want to hear what his response is going to be.

“How is he?” Sam queries, clearly choosing to turn a deaf ear to Backup’s obvious mood as he walks up to the bed and, in a surprisingly tender gesture, strokes his fingers along my cheek. 

“How. Is. He?” Backup repeats, enunciating each syllable as though she’s either talking to a complete idiot or she’s struggling to keep her temper in check. “Christ, Sam, you’re all class, aren’t you…”

“What are you talking about?” Sam replies in a cool, blandly polite tone that tells me he’s not in the mood for being on the receiving end of Backup’s temper – however justified it may be – and that, in turn, it could very well be on for one and all in the next few seconds. Sam and Backup are close. Brother and sister type close, in fact, and this allows for no holds barred arguing that can drag on for days if not weeks. There was one time when they refused to speak to each other for an entire month. Being in the middle was not a place I ever want to find myself again, that’s for sure. “I came as quickly as I could,” he adds, abruptly retracting his hand and, if I’m reading the sound and the movement of the air correctly, turning around so that his back is facing the bed. “You can stop looking at me like that, Backup. It’s not my fault he’s in here.”

Huffing loudly enough to let those in the nearby rooms know she’s pissed off, Backup begins to pace the length of the floor at the foot of the bed. Although her flat soled, ballet-style shoes make little noise, I have no doubt that she’s pacing and can mentally picture the look of annoyance on her face and how she’d be trying her hardest not to actually look Sam in the eye for fear of only becoming angrier. “You’re incredible,” she snaps. “You sent your partner a… a what, exactly? A care package? You sent Chris your own personal interpretation of a care package via a courier! My God! When he told me that I felt sure he had to be kidding. Then, however, I remembered who we were talking about and while I thought it certainly took the freaking cake I just knew it had to be true. That’s why I’m surprised you actually made the effort to call in. Surely you could have asked around and made arrangements for someone else, a perfect stranger perhaps, to come in your stead…”

“Have you quite finished?” Oh yeah. Here it comes. Sam’s going to give as good as he gets, I’m inadvertently the cause of all the drama and, hey, as I can’t even open my eyes there’s not a damn thing I can do about it. Just… Fantastic. I wish I was still unconscious.

“Finished? I’m only just getting started. I can’t believe…”

“You can’t believe… what? Not that I see why I should be justifying my actions to you, I put a lot of effort into that… care package. Painkillers, vitamins, cold and flu tablets – everything he really needed. It was very well thought out.”

“Mmm… Very well thought out and then placed in the hands of a courier. And don’t give any of that ‘too busy’ bullshit either. If you’d wanted to you’d have been able to find the time to deliver it yourself. You… You just didn’t want to!”

“He was ill, I didn’t want to impose as he needed his rest and, I’m sorry if this offends you, I have to be honest and say I didn’t really want to catch anything from him. The flu is going through the office and we’re short staffed enough as it is without losing others to it.”

“Crap, crap, crap,” Backup retorts as she stops her pacing and I imagine her to be glaring up at Sam with a look of utter disbelief on her face. “You’ve had the flu shot. We had it in the same week, remember? You whined that the nurse was a battleaxe and made a point of showing me your tiny, insignificant bruise from the needle. You sent a courier because you didn’t want to see him, because you were already trying to avoid him and… Damn it, Sam! Not again. If you can’t cope with having Chris back in your life and are going to have another meltdown, then for God’s sake have the decency to talk to him about your repressed and quite frankly fucked up feelings. Don’t just go into head-in-the-sand, avoidance-mode while you try to work it out for yourself because, and history backs me up here, it doesn’t work.”

“If Chris had any concerns he could have said something,” Sam murmurs flatly. “He is, after all, an adult.”

“And so are you! Don’t look at me like that, Sam. I know you, I know what’s going through your mind and I also know what you’re in danger of once again sabotaging if you don’t wake up to your self.”

“As touched as I am by your interest, it really doesn’t have anything to do with you. Just because I didn’t go rushing around to Chris’ with my Florence Nightingale hat on doesn’t mean anything has to be wrong. I sent a courier because I was strapped for time and really didn’t want to get sick myself, end of story. Besides, I’m here now, aren’t I? Would I have bothered to come if…”

“Wouldn’t surprise me,” Backup interrupts. “But, whatever. You’re right. You’re here now and I’m sure if Chris was conscious he’d be duly grateful.”

“Don’t be like that, Backup. I’m sorry that he’s in hospital and I got here as quickly as I could once I heard. And, okay, in hindsight I probably could have done things differently… But I didn’t and having you bitch at me isn’t going to fix anything.” Sam sighs, either having had enough of fighting or because he’s suddenly realised how time consuming this bickering lark is and that – surely – he should be going soon. “Now, are you going to get off your soapbox long enough to tell me how he actually is, or do I need to go and find a nurse?” 

“Like you care,” Backup mutters before sighing and no doubt giving a resigned – ‘like I want to waste my time arguing with a pigheaded fool anyway – shrug. “According to the doctor who admitted him he has a mild fever and, from listening to his chest, most likely a small amount of fluid on his left lung which he’s thinking points to pneumonia. This they won’t be able to confirm though until the x-rays and other results come back, but they’re pretty sure that’s what he has.”

Well, there you go. Pneumonia. Lovely. And… I’ve had x-rays taken? Just how long was I out for?

“Oh, and then there’s the concussion,” Backup continues, “sprained wrist and ankle, and enough bruising to make him feel even sorrier for himself than he already did before the incident with the stairs. The doctor thinks a couple of days enforced rest in the hospital will see him fully recovered, but…” She trails off and sighs again. “I know it could be far worse but… it’s not good. I… I always hate seeing my friends in hospital beds.” 

“Pneumonia?” Sounding taken aback, Sam walks back alongside the bed and, as though he’s taking my temperature, lightly places his hand on my forehead. “Oh… For some reason I thought he was only in here for the concussion. I didn’t… I never expected…”

“You said yourself others in the office have had it,” Backup replies softly, all the heat and anger having left her voice, as she shifts closer to Sam and runs her fingers along the blanket covering my legs. “Look, Sam… I’m sorry for having launched into you. I know it’s none of my business but I… I can’t help but worry, you know? Especially now, with Chris in hospital, it… it just reminds of what happened last time I saw him lying in a bed like this and… Again, it’s got nothing to do with me, hell, it’s probably even incredibly selfish of me, but I really don’t think I can watch that happen again. I… I just can’t.”

“Hey…” Removing his hand from my forehead, Sam turns to face Backup. “It’s nothing like last time. For one, as grey looking as he is he still looks a million times better than what he did after the Russians had finished with him and, two, you’ve got to believe me that things are fine and that there’s really no need for you to be worried at all. We’re fine, seriously.”

We are? That’s… reassuring… to hear. Of course, some could argue pretty much giving me the cold shoulder since dinner at the King’s says otherwise, but what would I know? I’ve got an untold number of medically approved drugs running through my system though so I’m probably not the best judge of what’s right from what’s wrong at the moment.

“But…”

“You’re right,” Sam interjects, cutting Backup off. “I was wrong to send the courier and I should have called in to check on him. I feel bad about that now and am just thankful that you were there when you were.”

“Actually…” Her voice catching in her throat, Backup swallows hard and moves away from Sam. “This… I blame myself,” she murmurs, sounding to my absolute horror as though she’s tearing up. “He… Oh God, Sam… He didn’t want me to come round but I insisted and then I managed to upset him by asking about the tree and…”

“What tree?” Sam queries, his tone of voice equal parts confusion and – as he finds dealing with tears to be even worse than trying to work out his own feelings – mortification. “Come on, Backup. I’m sure…”

“His sister’s Christmas tree,” Backup manages to gasp out as, sniffing miserably, the tears begin to fall. “I made him tell me about that and then, even though he was coughing, he explained where you were up to with the serial killer case and… And I shouldn’t have pushed him! I shouldn’t have insisted on visiting, I should have minded my own business about the damn tree and I shouldn’t have let him feel as though he had to bring me up to speed just because I was there! If… If I hadn’t…”

“Hey… Shhh,” Sam murmurs as the sound of Backup’s sobbing becomes muted, I suspect, by the fact he’s put a comforting arm around her shoulders and she’s burying her head into his chest. “It’s not your fault and you’re not to blame yourself for this,” he continues soothingly. “If anything I should be thanking you for being there for him. Think about it… What would have happened if he’d taken the short cut down the stairs while alone, hmm? Chris is sick, Backup. You didn’t cause it, you didn’t make it worse and, this is the most important thing, you were there when he needed help. So… Shhh… There’s absolutely nothing to cry about.”

“I still…”

“Uh-uh… That’s enough of that. Now, did you drive here or did you come in the ambulance?”

“I…” Sam’s change of topic catching Backup off guard and causing her to think outside the realm of her misguided guilt, she sniffs and squirms free of his embrace. “My car’s back at Chris’ place as I chose to stay with him in the ambulance. Why?”

“Because I want to drive you home and needed to know where your car was,” Sam replies somewhat commandingly. “It’ll be fine at Chris’ though so, come on, let’s go. If need be I can take Spencer back to pick it up after I’ve dropped you off.”

“But you’ve only just got here,” Backup complains with another sniff. “I don’t care about the car and can just catch a cab home. You should stay with Chris.”

“I’ll come back after I’ve taken you home and again, if need be, dropped Spencer off to pick up your car. Seriously. Stop looking at me like that.”

“You promise?”

“Yes. I promise. Now… The sooner you agree to come with me the sooner I’ll be back and the better the chance I’ll have of being here when he comes to, so… How about it?”

“Mmm… Spencer’s probably had enough of being alone with the kids by now anyway,” Backup replies, laughing. “So, okay. You win… but only because you’ve promised to be back.”

“You have my word,” Sam responds, sounding almost pitifully relieved that this incredibly unpleasant experience – being bitched at, having to justify himself, tears… honestly, I bet he’s regretting ever having stepped foot in the room – is finally coming to an end. “I’ll be back the moment I’ve finished playing chauffeur.”

“You’d better be,” Backup retorts with just a hint of warning in her voice. “Just let me say goodbye to Chris and I’ll be right with you.”

“Uh… I’ll just be outside the door then,” Sam replies, bewilderment evident enough in his tone to tell me he doesn’t quite understand why she’d be wanting to say goodbye to me when I’m unconscious but, not wanting to rock the boat now he feels it’s back on smoother waters, that he’s not going to mention it.

Walking up to the head of the bed, Backup waits until Sam has left the room before leaning over me and kissing my cheek. “As I have this feeling you’re more awake than you’re letting on,” she murmurs, ruffling my hair, “I may as well let you know that I’ll be relying on you to tell me whether Sam keeps his word or not. For what it’s worth, I think he will, but… you can tell me all about it when I come back to see you tomorrow.” Her piece said, she kisses my cheek again before quietly slipping out of the room.

Alone, and no longer having an interesting if not the slightest bit uncomfortable conversation to eavesdrop on, I slide off into a deep, dreamless sleep.

~*~

When I first return to consciousness I do so not to Sam’s company but to that of an earnest young doctor whose name goes in one ear and immediately out the other. The painkillers having worn off by this stage, I find it hard to concentrate on the news he’s trying to share with me about the state of my health and I think it’s safe to say it’s an entirely unsatisfying exchange for both of us. I don’t learn anything new from what I overheard Backup tell Sam, and instead of intelligent comprehension all the doctor gets is the odd grunt and, I’m sure of it, an incredibly blank expression staring vacantly back at him.

The nurse that followed the doctor’s visit I remember both more clearly and with far more fondness. This, of course, has a lot to do with the way she deftly made me swallow more pills, fluffed my pillows and smoothed my bedding with an almost military precision – and utter lack of interest – before, without once looking at me as though she expected a response of any sort, disappearing as silently as she’d arrived. The pills obviously having been designed to – knock out an elephant – remove both pain and the ability to remain awake, I was asleep within minutes.

Struggling into a heavy headed consciousness now, I don’t know how long I’ve been out for or even what time of day or night it might be, but what I do know is that Sam’s in the room with me. My nose still blocked, I can’t smell his aftershave (which is the same one he’s been wearing ever since I’ve known him and which, the scent of coming so out of the blue, almost bought me undone in a department store not long after I’d left London and returned to the States) but I can sense him. And the reason I know the person sitting in the chair to my right is Sam and not someone – either known or otherwise – else is…

Instinct, I suppose. 

He said he’d be back, he promised Backup the same, I can’t think of anyone else who’d be sitting quietly in my hospital room in the middle of the night – assuming, that is, it is the middle of the night and I’m not even further gone than I’ve been led to believe – and, most tellingly or most importantly, I… want… it to be Sam. I don’t even care if he’s only here because he thinks it’s what’s expected of him or because he’s afraid of disappointing Backup. I’m sick, I don’t like hospitals and – if that makes me needy then so be it – I want to feel as though I’m cared for, that someone actually gives a damn and is willing to put themselves out to be with me. 

I want my lover, the man I’ve been through hell and back with, the man I didn’t see and refused to so much as even think about for five whole years, the man who has the ability to get under my skin like no one else before him and who alone can make me feel on top of the world with the same ease as he can.

I want Sam.

And be it through the power of positive thinking or the possible fact that I’m actually still asleep and am simply dreaming that I’m awake, I know that that’s what I’ve got.

Unlike earlier I could, if I wanted to, open my eyes and let him know that I’m awake. But I don’t want to. I’m content just with knowing that he’s there and don’t want to ruin the peaceful innocence of the moment by making him feel as though – God forbid – we have to talk. He’s sitting next to me, tapping away by the sounds of it on his iPad and…

… slowly, probably without even thinking, he’s sliding his hand under mine and entwining our fingers.

Not wanting to let on that I’m aware of his blissfully reassuring and familiar touch, I resist the urge to squeeze his fingers back and, feeling happier than I have for days, go back to sleep with a smile tugging on my lips.

~*~

“Oh, thank God,” I comment just a touch too enthusiastically as Backup and Spencer open the door and walk into my hospital room. “You have no idea how happy I am to see you,” I continue, gesturing at the television set mounted on the wall facing the bed as I use the remote to turn it off. “Seriously, the crap they put on the TV during the day is just atrocious. Given that watching test pattern would have been more entertaining, I don’t even know why they bother with screening it.”

“No one was forcing you to watch it,” Spencer smirks, dropping an overnight bag that I recognise as mine on the floor by the cupboard.

“It was either that or continue listening to the nice old lady, who, incidentally, if she doesn’t have Alzheimer’s I’m a Hobbit, wandered in here earlier, promptly sat down and started telling me about all the ghosts she’s seen walking the corridors,” I reply, smiling at Backup as she gives my cheek a quick kiss before taking a seat. “If a nurse hadn’t poked her head through the door while searching for her she’d probably still be here. Harmless, and really quite sweet, but… weird. Really, really weird.”

Laughing, Spencer takes a seat in the room’s only other chair and gives me a mock rueful look. “Admit it, Chris. You’re just a magnet for… weird. Always have been.”

“Yeah, yeah…” Pushing myself up into a more comfortable position against the mound of cushions behind my back, I cough for a few seconds as a result of the exertion and shrug. “Hey, I’m honoured. Both of you. Where have you dumped the kiddies though?

“Neighbours,” Backup replies, pulling a face as Spencer sighs. “We have this ‘what goes about, comes about’ kind of deal with them where they’ll take ours if we take theirs. Don’t get me wrong, they’re quite lovely people and we get on well with them, but…”

“But their children are terrors,” Spencer states, taking over the story. “They have four to our two, the oldest has ADD, the youngest hardly ever stops crying and… we’re having them Saturday afternoon.”

“Last time we had them one of them got into the office and, in their search for games on the computer, very nearly lost a report I’d been working all week on,” Backup adds, rolling her eyes. “So, yes… Needless to say we’re looking forward to Saturday.”

“It could be worse, you could be stuck in here with nothing to watch on television and marauding dementia patients breaking into your room,” I respond as, suddenly feeling the urge to cough, I cover my mouth with my hand and will it down. “Damn! I’m sick of this Godforsaken coughing.”

Grabbing a tissue from the box on the bedside table, Spencer hands it to me and frowns as a neatly folded piece of paper slips from the table and onto the floor. “What’s this?” he queries, picking it up and tossing it over the bed to Backup. “It’s got your name on it.”

“Don’t look at me,” I mutter, sharing a ‘your guess is as good as mine’ look with Spencer as Backup unfolds the paper and begins to laugh.

“Smug git,” she snickers, handing the paper to me so I can read the message written on it in a familiar script. “Did you put him up to this?”

“I most definitely did not,” I protest, laughing as I pass Sam’s note – ‘Dear Backup. Dutifully returned as promised. Have a little faith occasionally. Sam.’ – to Spencer. “Ask him yourself. Although I thought he was sitting where you are now I never woke fully enough to say anything to him, so… The work, it’s all his.”

“And again I say, smug git,” Backup murmurs, still looking amused. “But, and I’ll give him this, he did exactly as he said he would and I’m proud of him. Speaking of Sam though, before I forget… He sent me a message this morning to say he wouldn’t be able to come in to see you for the next couple of days as something has just come up on one of the cases you’ve been working on and he’s having to go down to Dover to follow it up.”

Disappointed by the news that I’m not going to get to see Sam but not wanting to show it, I force a light smile across my lips and shrug. “Oh well. That’s okay. It’s not like I’m any great fun to be around at the moment anyway.”

“It’s legit, in case you’re curious,” Backup responds, ignoring the look of surprise Spencer shoots her and flashing me a reassuring smile. “Spence over there doesn’t approve but, well, knowing your partner as I do I decided to verify his story for myself and… took a look through the Agency’s files.”

“Oh, you did, did you?” That’s what I love about Backup. Knowledge may not equate to power in her books but it definitely equals comfort. She likes to know what’s going on with those she cares about and nothing stands in her way of finding out.

“Oh, she did,” Spencer confirms, grinning at his wife as, clearly not sure whether he’s teasing her or not, she glares back at him. “Honestly, given the ‘Big Sister’s’ watching routine she indulges in for you two, I pity the scrutiny James and Charlotte are going to come under when they’re older.”

“Hopefully they’ll be better behaved,” Backup retorts, her expression softening as she laughs. “Failing that, I’ll have them micro-chipped and monitor their every move that way.”

Turning to face Spencer, I look at him sadly and slowly shake my head. “I pity your poor children, I really do.”

“How about sharing some of that pity in my direction,” Spencer replies with a sly wink, “as I’m sure I’ll be the lucky recipient of a chip too.”

“Oh, don’t worry. You’re safe. I don’t care what you get up to,” Backup smirks, poking her tongue out at Spencer and causing them both to laugh. “Sorry, Chris,” she adds, leaning forward and giving my knee a quick pat. “We came to see how you are, not inflict our old married couple comedy routine on you.”

“Given the alternative,” I reply, pointing at the television, “your routine is a Godsend. So, please, feel free to continue.”

“Talk about being starved for entertainment,” Spencer mutters. “You poor thing. As if being sick and stuck in hospital isn’t bad enough you’re now so deluded you actually find us… entertaining?”

“Poor thing,” Backup echoes, peering at me closely. “Actually, you’re looking… less grey… than when I left you yesterday. In fact, you’re almost looking human again. So, how are you feeling?”

My cough having nothing if not perfect timing, I bark, gasp and wheeze for what feels like minutes before getting my breath back sufficiently to reply. “Stupid cough aside,” I murmur breathlessly, “I’m feeling pretty okay. Between the antibiotics and painkillers they’re pumping into me I feel… off with the fairies… but, hey, nothing’s hurting and, best of all, I think they’re already muttering about letting me go home tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?” Backup frowns, not looking as though she believes my doctor knows what he’s talking about. “Isn’t that a bit soon?”

“If the concussion hasn’t got me by then, it won’t,” I reply. “A sprained wrist and ankle is hardly hospitalisation material, and while the test results confirm pneumonia it’s only mild and, so long as I give my word that I’m not going to go straight out and run in a marathon and will do nothing but sit on my ass and rest, I’m good to go home.”

Making a disapproving noise that sounds as though it’s straight from the animated mouth of Marge Simpson, Backup shakes her head and looks around the room as though she’s searching for a change in topic. Finding it in a bouquet of flowers – dyed black roses in a purple glass vase – on the shelf next to the television, her expression brightens and she gestures at it. “They’re lovely,” she comments blithely. “Very… goth.”

“They’re from my new best friend, Eddie the Emo,” I respond, my attempt at a dry laugh very quickly giving way to another coughing fit. “They’re also cause for much conversation, and I think in the case of a few of the older ones, consternation, amongst the nurses. One though, and you’d know her if you saw her courtesy of the brilliant red streak amongst her otherwise pitch black hair, thinks they’re great. I’m trying to work out how to slip her Eddie’s number without looking… uh… creepy.”

“Speaking of… creepy,” Spencer interjects, glancing towards the door. “Have you encountered any members of the chav family from a few rooms down? Backup warned me about them when she came home yesterday but I’ve got confess I thought she was over exaggerating their… uh… unique qualities. Now though, having seen them for myself, she was positively restrained!”

“Chav?” I query, feeling as though I should know the word but at the same time not feeling entirely confident that I’ve got it right. “That’s the English equivalent of… trailer trash or… white trash, yeah?”

Backup nods. “Uh-huh. And you’ve got a family of them as close neighbours. The matriarch, a bottle blonde in a truly alarming leopard print nightgown, is in for a heart operation and I think the rest of them are here because it offers a nice change from hanging around the local shopping mall. You should see them though. They’re everywhere. I don’t think they could squeeze another person in the room if they tried.”

“Tell him about the rising star of the family,” Spencer prompts. “He’s even more fascinating than the matriarch.”

“Fascinating?” Backup snorts. “That’s one way of putting it, I suppose. I do suggest however, Chris, that you keep an eye out for him because it wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest if he decided to call in here to check out whether you’ve got anything worth stealing. He is, and I’m not kidding here, that bad. We overheard a couple of nurses talking about him in the lift coming up here and not only does he have wandering hands but they’ve also noticed a spike in petty thefts ever since he started visiting his beloved grandmother. He’s also, and I suspect this is the only reason he’s not behind bars already, the youngest looking eighteen year old you’ve ever seen.”

“He looks about twelve, if he’s lucky,” Spencer confirms. “All big eyes and butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-his-mouth innocence. Short, too. One of the nurses though, she mentioned that he celebrated his eighteenth birthday in here with a bad taste cake and a six-pack on Tuesday so, although you wouldn’t believe it to look at him, he really is an adult.”

“He sounds delightful,” I mutter, flinching as I forget about my bandaged wrist and foolishly put pressure on it as I change positions. “Shit! That wasn’t one of my better moves,” I add, coughing. “Back to your friend the chav though, I look forward to meeting him. I don’t suppose you put a gun in my bag, did you?”

Standing up, Backup grins and places her hand on my shoulder. “I suggested it, but Spencer wouldn’t let me.” Turning to face her husband, she gestures for him to stand up and tilts her head towards the door. “I think it’s time for us to be on our way,” she continues, giving my shoulder a squeeze as she kisses my cheek. “You’re looking a lot better than you did yesterday, thankfully, but you still need your rest. Now, if your doctor continues to insist that you’re well enough to be discharged tomorrow, give me a call and I’ll drive you home.”

“Thanks,” I murmur, stifling a yawn that effectively kills any desire I may have had to try to talk them out of leaving. “Thanks too for dropping by. I really appreciate it.”

Five minutes of drawn out farewells later I’m alone in the room and, feeling as though I’ve already ran the marathon I sarcastically mentioned earlier, another five minutes after that I’m sound asleep.

~*~

Putting the last of my vaguely alarming collection of antibiotics and steroid inhalers into my overnight bag, I zip it shut and after a moment’s hesitation pull on my coat. One hundred percent wool and – under strict instructions from Backup, delivered by Spencer this morning – designed for outdoor conditions as opposed to overheated hospitals, I regret it the second I’ve put it on but know I have to persevere. Too bulky to carry or to fit in my bag, it’s either wear it or leave it. And, going by the excited blather of the weather presenter this morning and her tales of record low temperatures for December, I think I’ll very much need it. Assuming, of course that is, I don’t collapse from heat exhaustion before even stepping foot out of the hospital.

Dressed, packed, and my latest dose of drugs doing a good job of making me feel close to a fully functioning human again, I pick my bag up and without a backwards glance make my way out of the room. Although Backup’s expecting a call so she can come and pick me up, I’ve decided to make my own way home in a cab and will only let her know once I’m safely ensconced back on my sofa. It’s not that I’m desperate to exert my independence or anything like that, more that I feel I’ve put her out enough already as it is and would rather listen to a lecture once it’s too late to do anything about it than I would make her come out in this weather just to provide a taxi service for me. She’ll be pissed off for sure, but my mind is made up and I’m prepared to wear her ire. Besides, if there’s no cabs available and I catch a chill from waiting she’ll be able to work the ‘you have no one to blame but yourself’ angle for months which, odd though it may sound, would certainly assist forgiveness.

Not at all unhappy at the prospect of returning home, I’m smiling as I leave the room and begin to make my way down the corridor to the nurses’ station. Backup and Spencer’s ‘Chav Family’ having made their presence known throughout the night by constantly pressing the nurse call button and generally making enough noise to make you think they thought they were at home in their own hovel, I know which room I’ll find them in even before the door opens and a – I think this is what the female of the species is known as – chavette teeters out on far too high white heels in front of me. One look at her and, this is even prior to her opening her garishly lipsticked – hot pink, didn’t that die in the Eighties? – mouth and flicking her pierced tongue at me, I’m instantly reminded of my cousin’s white trash wife, Sugar. Same teased blonde hair, same too tight and tasteless clothing, same vacant and always slightly drunk or stoned looking expression. 

Manners dictate that I mutter, ‘excuse me’, as she crashes into me but that’s as far as I can bring myself to go and I don’t make any attempt to keep her upright. She hits the floor with a combination of expletives and hysterical laughter bubbling out of her mouth as people – or alternatively, clones – rush out of the room to her aid. Like the whole you-don’t-want-to-want-to-look-because-you-know-it’s-wrong-but-can’t-help-yourself thing of having to gawk at a car crash, I’m fighting the urge to turn around and stare when I spot my elderly visitor from yesterday sitting on a bench in front of the nurses’ station. A nurse, her arm around Mavis’ – Backup not being the only one who likes to know what’s going on, I asked around about her and the nurses were only too happy to fill me in on their favourite patient – shoulders, appears to be consoling her and the sight of her red-rimmed from crying eyes causes my smile to slip.

“What’s the matter with Mavis?” I ask as I reach the counter of the nurses’ station. “She looks upset.”

“She’s lost her bag,” a nurse by the name of Janet answers, looking up from her clipboard.

“What Janet means to say is that she’s lost her bag… again,” the ward clerk pipes up with a fond smile. “Poor old Mavis. She’s always losing it.”

“It’s different this time,” Janet replies, frowning. “We’ve looked in all the usual spots, because Mel’s right and she is always losing it… but always in one of only five spots, and we can’t find it. As you can see, she’s devastated.”

“She’s like the queen, you see,” Mel adds, “never goes anywhere without her handbag. She’d be lucky to have a few quid in it, but…”

“But it’s not about the money,” Janet interjects, her expression softening to one of concern as she glances over at Mavis. “All her treasures are in that bag. Her mother’s compact, a photo of her late husband, little scribbled pictures from the grand-kiddies. If we can’t find it I don’t know what we’ll be able to do to console her.”

“She had it with her when she was in my room yesterday,” I respond, remembering the old fashioned, off-white – bone, I think they call it – coloured bag with ease because it reminded me of one my grandmother used to have. “Now… Are you positive she’s misplaced it and it hasn’t… gone for a walk?” I tilt my head in the direction of the Chav Family as they mill around the corridor like escapees from a Guns ‘n’ Roses fan convention. 

Snorting, Mel gazes at the family and pulls a face. “You’ve heard about our illustrious Smith family, have you?”

“Given the way they carried on last night, I’d have to have been deaf not to,” I reply, nodding my thanks to Janet as she slides my discharge papers along the counter with a pen. “Actually, my friends were telling me about them yesterday. About one in particular, a son? I could be well off the mark, but from what they were saying he sounds like a pretty likely suspect.”

“Wouldn’t surprise me.” Shrugging, Janet takes the papers from me once I’ve signed them and sighs. “Haven’t seen him for a while though. If he puts in an appearance I might ask him about it.”

Feeling bad for Mavis but not knowing what I can do for her, I say my farewells to Mel and Janet and, feeling somewhat like a very hot Michelin man in my coat, head towards the lift. Nearing it, the tell-tale sounds of an idiot attacking a vending machine reach my ears and, knowing instinctively who the culprit will be, I decide to make a detour in the hope of catching him with Mavis’ bag and change course to the waiting area.

Entering it, I see a short man – and, yes, even from the back I can see how he could be mistaken for a child or young teen – wearing a black hoodie and dirt stained skinny jeans pounding his fists into the drink machine and swearing violently under his breath. Hanging from his arm is Mavis’ bag and, seriously, it’s like the proverbial red rag to a bull to me. Stealing a little old lady’s handbag is just the lowest of the low and…

Game on. Seriously. To hell with my desire to get home in one piece. I’m not leaving the hospital without returning the bag to Mavis.

“Nice bag,” I drawl, dropping my overnighter by the entrance as I stalk across the floor towards the man. “Really suits you.”

“Fuck you,” he snaps, giving me a cursory glance over his shoulder before, clearly not finding me much of a threat despite the fact I’m a good seven inches taller than him, returning his attention to the vending machine. 

“Fashionable and erudite,” I retort, placing my hand on his shoulder and forcefully spinning him around to face me. “Incidentally, were you born stupid or have you actually had to study for it?”

“What?” Scowling at me, he tries to squirm free but the only result this achieves is for me to tighten my grip and for my mood to worsen. “Get your fuckin’ hands off me before I…”

“Before you… what… exactly?” I query, using my size, strength and training to both move him away from the vending machine and slam him heavily up against the wall. “Listen, creep,” I continue acidly, not liking how small he is, how eerily young he looks for his age and how his head barely comes up to my chest. “Just give me the bag and you can slither back to the hole you crawled out of. You’ll go your way, I’ll go mine and we can both forget this exchange ever happened.”

“Who’s gonna make me?” Proving once and for all that determination goes hand in hand with stupidity, he glares at me and aims a kick at my ankle. “Fuckin’ creep.”

Sighing, and wanting this over and done with before I snap and shove his head into the side of the machine, I lift my knee and slam it into his crotch. “Wrong answer,” I murmur sweetly, snatching the bag from him as, too angry and in too much pain to even contemplate retaliating, he drops – all the time swearing, of course – to the floor. “Oh, and consider this more a promise than a warning,” I add as I walk back to the entrance and, feeling strangely as though I’m being watched although I can’t see anyone, pick up my bag, “any more trouble from you and you have my word that I’ll see to it personally that you spend this Christmas and many after it behind bars.”

Leaving the room to a chorus of ‘fuck yous’ and declarations of revenge that are more laughable than threatening, I return to the nurses’ station and triumphantly hold up the bag for them to see. “Should he step out of line again,” I state, pausing by the counter to ferret a business card out of my wallet to give to a grinning Mel, “call this number and we’ll see to it that it’ll be a very long time before he bothers anyone again.”

Having duly done what I can to – ruin his fun – stitch the scumbag up, I flash Mel a smile and, after adding a fifty to the handbag to make up for what he may have taken from it, head over to where Mavis is still sitting. The nurse having left, she’s on her own now and, sniffing miserably into what looks like an antique handkerchief, she doesn’t look up as I take a careful seat next to her.

“Looking for this?” I murmur, gently placing the handbag on her lap.

Her face lighting up at the sight of her precious bag, she clutches her bag to her frail chest and positively beams. “You found it! You’re a good boy.”

“I try,” I reply, placing my hands over her fragile – translucent skin stretched over gnarled bones – ones and giving them a quick squeeze. “You keep that safe, you hear.”

Nodding vigorously and all the time clutching the bag tightly, she stands up and, no doubt already having forgotten the part I played in its return, wobbles over to the nurses’ station to share her delight with Janet and Mel.

Pleased that I was able to get the bag back, I stand up and – better late than never – walk over to the lift. It already being on my floor, the doors open straight away and, getting in, I hit the button for the ground. Feeling a little light headed from my adventures, I don’t pay much attention when an arm suddenly stops the doors from closing and a doctor in a white coat gets in. Glancing at him as he moves past me to stand at the back, I think there’s something vaguely recognisable about him, like I’ve met him before, but too focussed on the thought of shortly being able to collapse in the back of a cab I don’t put too much energy into trying to place him and just stare at the electronic screen in the lift as the floor numbers charting our descent flash up on it. 

“You’re the worst,” a low, ominous voice whispers in my ear as an arm is slid around my waist and a needle is shoved through my many layers of clothing and into my shoulder. My knees buckling even as I feel the contents of the hypodermic entering my body, the last thing I hear before my world goes black fills me with a sense of dread.

“I’ve got something special planned for you.”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~


	2. Chapter 2

I wake, lying on my side in the recovery position. The floor is cold beneath me, unless my eyes are deceiving me the room – or otherwise – I’m in is in total darkness, and startled by this I hurriedly push myself up into a sitting position. This however proves not to be one of my better moves for two reasons. One, the sudden movement causes my head to pound to the point where I quite literally see flashes of star shaped light before my eyes and, two, the rate at which nausea rises in my throat tells me that I’d probably been placed on the floor in that particular position so I didn’t accidentally choke on my vomit.

Lurching to my feet, I hold my arms, hands palm first, in front of me and promptly, after having barely taken two steps, run into a wall. Made of rough timber with the occasional bent nail protruding out of it, I tentatively feel my way along it until I come to a corner. There, I drop to my knees and throw up until nothing is left in my stomach. The pain in my head throbs as my body convulses and it takes at least five minutes before my ragged breathing is back under control and I’m able to continue my… tour… of what I assume has to be my very own cell.

Having been in similar situations more often than I care to admit – either in the name of training, or the far less preferable ‘captured in the line of duty’ – I don’t panic and conduct my investigation with a focussed, single minded determination. The room being approximately ten foot by 8 foot, it doesn’t take me long to complete my examination and once I’ve retraced my steps to put as much distance between myself and the puddle of vomit in the corner I crouch down in order to both lessen the strain on my head and to take stock.

Unless my brain isn’t functioning correctly and my imagination is overriding logic, I think I’m in some sort of empty tack or miscellaneous room in a stable. An empty stable, if the silence is anything to go by, at that. From both the feel and smell of it, straw covers the floor, and although faded the lingering scent of horse shit and damp leather hangs in the chilly air. A broken window, far too small to contemplate trying to climb through even if it wasn’t boarded up with a covering of some sort on the outside to keep so much as glimmer of sunlight to pierce the darkness, breaks up the monotony of age-wearied timber on the wall to my back and a door, locked tight, opposite it. Save for the odd, small pile of damp straw, the room is empty. And dark. Very dark. Can’t forget that. While my eyes have adjusted to it I can’t see my hand if I hold it up in front of my face and have no idea whether it’s simply like this because it’s dark outside or whether it’s just been built to keep out the light.

None the wiser to my plight despite being reasonably content with the factualness of my deductions, I decide to catalogue any positives I can find before moving on to the – far more worrying – negatives.

Standing up, I ignore the swell of nausea in my – surely completely empty by now – stomach and extend the search to my body. In the positive column goes the fact that I’m still completely dressed. Shoes, socks, jeans, t-shirt, shirt, jumper, coat. Given that it’s so cold in here that I already can’t feel the tip of my nose, this is excellent news that is only bettered by discovering a pair of gloves in the pocket of my coat. I have no injuries that I’m aware of and I think, so long as I avoid sudden movements, that the pain in my head is settling down to just that of a headache.

So… I’m more or less physically fit, have enough clothing on to hopefully stave off hypothermia, and…

And sadly that’s about it for the positives.

The negatives, however… Well, they just keep going.

While my wallet is still in the pocket of my jeans, my mobile is gone, as is my watch. Just because my doctor was prepared to sign me out of hospital – most likely because they needed the bed – doesn’t mean I’m fully recovered from pneumonia and all my medication is in my overnighter which, of course, isn’t in here with me.

Wherever… here… is.

I don’t know…

… What time it is. How long I was out for. Where I am. Why I’m here. Who put me here. What they might want from me.

What I do know though, and this is a big negative, a huge one even, is that I’m pretty much screwed. Even assuming my disappearance has been discovered, my – God, hindsight’s a complete bitch – misguided determination to make it home under my own steam would have meant it was delayed and those precious first hours to chase down leads would have been lost. Assuming, that is, anyone even knows I’m missing. I would think, given that she would have either questioned… or got annoyed at… my lack of a call letting her know I was ready to be picked up that Backup would have rang the hospital… and then rang my mobile… and then called home… and then got in the car and driven around to my place… and then, concern warring with exasperation, raised the alarm.

As theories go it’s one I’m confident of actually having taken place, and most likely in that exact order of events too, but as to… when… it took place? God knows. And he ain’t telling.

But, needing as many positives as I can get, I’m choosing to believe that my disappearance has been noted and that the troops are rallying even as I crouch here making less and less sense of just what the fuck is going on.

My mind thankfully not having been addled by whatever the knockout drug was that was injected into my shoulder, I remember clearly everything that took place before I lost consciousness. I remember all the details of my run in with the chav, and while I might admit to having been a little heavy handed (without hiding said threatening behaviour behind the protection of my I.D. card) in my treatment of him, I hardly think either he or any of his slimy brethren would have it in them to retaliate in this way. Getting jumped in the parking lot and being delivered a beating, yeah, that I can I see. But this? Drugged, transported to… fuck knows where… and held in a room in a stable? That’s just not the style of a common, garden variety thug.

So…

Pissed off with me though they may be, I haven’t fallen foul of a chav hell-bent on revenge. What exactly I have fallen foul of however, well…

That really is the sixty-four thousand pound question.

One that, even if it didn’t assist me in my predicament in any way, I’d give just about anything to know the answer to.

~*~ 

Possibly the worst thing about being kept in the dark – literally, no pun intended – is not being able to keep track of the time. Although the actual time of the day or night has always mattered little to me – punctuality, for example, while a social nicety, has always floated Sam’s boat far more than mine – not knowing how long I’ve been stuck in this room for is sending me bat shit crazy. I like… no, need… to have access to a watch or clock at all times. Just call it a foible. As far as I’m concerned the invention of watches with glow in the dark hands is even better than that of sliced bread. If – under normal circumstances, that is, not… captivity – I have a restless night and keep waking every half hour or so, I can cope with this better if I’m able to see a clock proving this to me far better than I can if I’ve got no idea how long I’ve been able to stay asleep for. It’s just one of those things. 

And, because it’s ‘one of those things’ I’m not really coping all that well with not having access to my watch. There not really being much in the way of entertainment in my ‘cell’, I sleep a lot… But for actually how long I wouldn’t have a clue. 

Then there’s the… how long have I been here question that, if only I had my watch, I’d know the answer to. Have I been here a day? Only a couple of hours? The – much needed – concept of time is entirely lost to me. Every time I doze off, do I do so for a couple of minutes, or am I out cold for hours?

Apart from the howl of the wind no other sounds penetrate the thick timber of the small room I’m being kept in. In fact, I’ve heard no sounds of life since I’ve been here. No footsteps on gravel, no car engines, no planes flying overhead. Not even the sound of a bird singing or dog barking.

I hear nothing, see nothing… and time either passes incredibly slowly or incredibly quickly – I honestly wouldn’t know.

Whoever it is who has abducted me is yet to make his presence known and I’m still coming up completely blank in respect to who on earth it might be. Or why.

Time to think myself into ever decreasing circles being plentiful, I’ve had ample opportunity to consider who I may have pissed off enough to want to do this and – surprise, sur-fucking-prise – I keep coming up blank. Although I’ve… let’s say aggravated and leave it at that… a lot of scumbags through my line of work in my life, not one of them is springing to mind as to possibly being the mastermind behind this. Most of them, and truth be told by far the majority are either dead, or alive but buried behind bars somewhere, wouldn’t bother going to this much effort to get their revenge anyway. Bang, you’re dead, or kaboom, you’ve been blown into itty-bitty pieces would be more their style. I can’t remember anyone from my N.C.I.S. days who’d have the smarts to pull this off, and, really, the Agency is still relatively new and we’ve been keeping a low profile in the name of getting off to a good, professional start.

Again, I know I would have pushed the buttons big time of the chav family at the hospital but, and maybe I’m being too blinkered in my point of view here, I’m confident they’ve got nothing to do with it. If they’d got it into their thick skulls that abducting me to teach me a lesson was the way to go, I’d know about it, I’m sure. 

So, if it’s not the unwanted residue of a past case or the chavs, what’s left?

Random psychopath? Sure. Fine. Whatever. The world, after all, is unfortunately full of lunatics who get off on the misfortune of others. But, proving no matter how hard I try I can’t settle on a single answer to any of my damn questions, this begs the insanely simple question of… why. Why me?

For a ransom? Maybe, but as base as this is, the only person who could actually cover any monetary demands would be me. So, if it’s money they want they’re, as the saying goes, barking up the wrong tree.

Using me as way to get back at… Sam or Horvath? Possible, I suppose. I still don’t know all that much about Sam’s career after I took off back to the States with my tail between my legs, and God alone knows how many Horvath would have pissed off over the duration of his career. But… Okay. They’ve got me. Now what?

Sick and twisted kicks? Again, fine. It takes all sorts. But, as always, I just don’t get it. I’m positive there’s no surveillance equipment in the room – no electronic hum, no red blinking light staring at me from high up in the wall – so it’s not like someone could be getting their warped rocks off by watching me. And if there’s a sexual component, what are they waiting for? Instead of being fattened up like a Thanksgiving turkey I’m being starved because they favour the gaunt look?

Seriously, just who fucking knows.

In an admittedly twisted sort of way, I almost miss what I’ve taken to calling the ‘traditional’ method of being held against my will. The dark and dank cell (okay, that I’ve got, but that’s it for following the unwritten rule book), the being dragged out threatened with torture routine, the threats actually being followed through with, the never ending demands for information… Basically I miss the whole knowing exactly why you were in the predicament you were in side of things. Besides, I’m already in enough discomfort as it is, so it’s not really as though adding torture to my ordeal would make all that much of a difference.

My left arm, which incidentally was badly broken five years ago by the Russians who followed the ‘capture, hold and abuse’ script to the letter, in particular is aching like a bitch. It usually, just it’s way to let me know that, no, it never really was the same after the abuse it suffered, twinges a bit in the colder weather, but I have access to nice things like warmth and ibuprofen and I’m quickly able to ignore it. Not here though. Here is constantly cold and despite my layers of clothing I can feel the chill settling into my bones.

I don’t want to be – why pick one factor when there’s just so damn many to chose from? – but I’m afraid of falling prey to hypothermia. It’s December and England is in the grips of cold snap usually more associated with January or February. The last weather report I saw mentioned heavy snowfalls and temperatures well below zero. I’m thankful for Backup having sent my coat into the hospital (and if I make it out of this I’m going to have come up with something spectacular for her to show my extremely heartfelt appreciation) but it’s not enough. My subconscious obviously having decided I’m already under enough stress and strain, instead of a nightmare my last dream was about sitting in front of a roaring fire.

Training tells me that I should stay active, keep moving. But it, like everything else, is pretty much easier said than done. While I can pace the length of the room with relative ease, my cough is back with a vengeance and if I keep at it for too long the ensuing coughing attack sees me, gasping and light headed, dropping to my knees and feeling quite unable to get back up again. Knowing that I can’t stay in one position for too long though, I force myself to continue once I’ve sufficiently recovered but, really, I don’t know for how much longer I’ll be able to keep it up. 

Even if I have only been here for day, I know that I’m growing weaker. The hunger – feeling this sick finally coming in handy for something – I can more or less handle, but the thirst weighs heavily on my mind. If the devil came along and made the offer, I think I’d quite happily sell my soul for a glass of water. Well, maybe that and a painkiller or four.

I don’t want to – because it flies in the face of all the training I’ve had and doesn’t achieve anything – slip into a sense of helplessness, but it’s hard. Really hard. My prison is just that though. Secure and impenetrable. Even though it’s pitch black, I feel as though I know every inch of my room. I’ve kicked the door and thrown myself at it for what felt like hours – but it never so much as made a creaking sound or budged on its hinges. All that was achieved by scratching at and digging around the window frame was a bunch of broken fingernails, an almost broken finger and quite a few joyless moments spent groping around in the dark for my gloves because I’d stupidly put them on the floor instead of in my pocket. 

It’s…

It’s all just fairly dire. There’s an ever increasing chance that I’ll die here and… I don’t even know why.

~*~

The out of place sound of footsteps outside my prison startling me into life, I unfold myself from my huddled position on the floor and lurch laboriously to my feet. I’m not far enough gone to delude myself that the owner of the footsteps is actually going to be of any assistance to me but, beggars not being able to be choosers and all that, I’m so starved for company other than my increasingly loopy own that I’ll take whatever I can get.

Staggering over to the wall by the window, I bang on it weakly and call out, “Hey! In here!” The sheer effort of this hardly strenuous action exhausting me, I’m back sitting on the floor, my back against the wall and my heart pounding dully in my chest before I get a response.

“Oh,” a decidedly cultured sounding male voice announces with disappointed surprise. “You’re still alive.”

“Sorry,” I mutter as the footsteps come to a stop just outside the window. “But, you know how it is. In every life a little rain must fall.” Sarcasm and attitude probably isn’t in my best interests here but, so sue me, it’s instinctual. Mouth off first, even when I’m in the shit, and possibly think about it later. That’s me all over.

“Alive and lippy,” the man replies with an amused chuckle that manages to make goosebumps break out across my already chilled skin. “You are a stubborn one, I’ll grant you that.”

“And your hospitality leaves a hell of a lot to be desired,” I retort, clamping my hand over my mouth in an attempt to silence the burst of coughing that suddenly overcomes me because I don’t want him to know how unwell I am if I can help it. “I’m not going to recommend you to my friends, that’s for sure.” 

Clearly enjoying our exchange far more than I am, the man laughs. “That, as the only way you will ever be leaving this room is in the back of coroner’s vehicle, is of no concern to mine.”

Deciding against informing him that if that’s the case I’ll make a point of coming back as a vengeful spirit and haunting his ass, I don’t reply. I want to. I want to bite back with a snappy rejoinder but… Well, it’s kind of hard when you’ve just had it confirmed that you really are expected to play nice for the lunatic holding you captive and die.

“What? No response,” he responds, his voice oozing with false sincerity. “That is a shame. I really was just beginning to enjoy your witty repartee.”

If that’s the case, try this award winner on for size. “Bite me.”

“Tsk… You can do better than that. Unless… Has that annoying cough hurt your throat? I half expected for it to have finished you off by now.”

“As the saying goes, don’t count your chickens before they’ve hatched.” Take that. I’m tougher than you think, asshole.

I’m also a little more alarmed – woo-hoo, an achievement in itself – than I was a moment ago. If he knows about the cough, what more does he know about? Given that I was abducted from the hospital, does this mean he knows about the pneumonia too?

“Starvation, dehydration, hypothermia, fluid building up in your lungs until you drown… The exact manner in which you finally succumb is of no interest,” the man responds in a bored sounding, matter-of-fact tone. “You merely have to die.”

Oh yeah. He knows about the pneumonia. Wonderful. And so many choices as to what may cause my last breath too. Lucky, lucky me. I think it’s fairly safe to say I’m now regretting having my wish for knowledge about my predicament fulfilled.

“Oh, is that all?” I reply drily as, forcing myself to stand up, I lean limply against the all.

“No. It is not all,” he surprises me by replying, his cold voice louder now that I’m standing. “You have to suffer first.”

He wants me to suffer… and then die? Oh yeah. I’ve really done it – whatever the hell it is I’ve done – this time.

“I know this is probably a stupid question, given that it’s no doubt completely clear to you, but just what is it that I’ve done to offend you?” I’m sure I don’t want to know the answer – assuming I even get it – but I’ve just got to ask.”

“You… You are the worst of them all!” the man exclaims, his voice loud enough in my ear to make me think he’s standing just on the other side of the wall. “That is why I had to come up with something… special… for your demise. It was not enough for you to simply die. You needed to suffer first.”

“Oh.” Fuck this. Maybe all the cold air is freezing my brain, but this isn’t making any sense. I don’t recognise his voice, I can’t think of anyone I’ve really pissed off recently, and… “Why am I the worst?” I query. “Don’t tell me I cut you off in traffic or something earth shattering like that?”

“You gave me hope, false hope as it turns out, that there was still good in this world.”

I… did? Wow. Go me. “But…”

“Then you had to go and ruin the illusion,” he finishes with a low hiss. “I saw you. I saw what you did to that poor boy.”

Poor boy? What poor boy? The only boy I know is Backup’s son, James, and the only thing I could be accused of where he’s concerned is feeling as though I have to have a gift for him everything I see him. “What are you talking about? I haven’t done…”

“Don’t lie! I saw you. I saw what you did and it made me sick to my stomach.”

“If you’d just tell me what…”

“I knew then what I had to do,” he continues quietly, almost dreamily. “You had to pay, as all those before you did, and I knew exactly which of the unused methods I would… allocate… to you.”

Something in his response making a sudden degree of sense to me that, really, I wish it hadn’t, I feel my knees give way beneath me and, feeling as though the ability to speak has deserted me, I slump heavily to the floor. 

All those before you… Unused methods… 

Oh, fuck. Surely not…

He’s done this before. He clearly knows what he’s doing. He… has a list of deaths he’s working his way through? Deaths, as in… A bullet to the head? A faked suicide or accidental death? A violent mugging?

Abduction coupled with abandonment that results in death by… natural causes?

Fuck! Fuck, fuck, fuck!

I don’t know how I’ve managed it, but I think I’m about to be the latest victim of… ‘our’… serial killer and that when my body is found it’s probably going to have White Boy’s diamante ‘E’ earring somewhere on it.

At the risk of repeating myself…

Fuck.

~*~

One of the things I had drummed into me from a very young age was that ‘there’s always hope’. From heroic tales of bravery in the Great Wars to triumph over adversaries that ranged from illness, devastation from flood or fire, to heartbreak – there’s nothing my ancestors haven’t weathered. A family mottos to have go, it was a good one. It wasn’t religious (prayer will save you!) or blithe (just smile through the pain) and there was always a tale or two featuring someone you shared a bloodline with to back it up. The wedding put a dint in my belief of it always holding true, but looking back a glimmer of hope that I’d be able to find my way out of the darkness did hold firm and I think that’s why I chose to accept the job offer in London. I… hoped… a fresh start would help. And, thankfully, it did.

I’ve also survived more than my fair share of threats to my life over my career. Abduction, torture, gun fights, explosives, any number of knife – or whatever random weapon came to hand at the time – wielding thugs, high speed chases and subsequent crashes, being lost… Just about you name it and I’ve faced it. Hell, I’ve even been knocked out, tied up and pumped full of drugs by an ex-lover off his head on steroids. A quiet life? I wouldn’t know the meaning of the word. Does such a thing even exist?

There have been a lot of dark and scary moments in my life. Moments where I honestly thought that my time was up. Yet, with each and every breath I continued to take I held onto the hope that the cavalry – or ambulance, as the case all too frequently was – would arrive in the nick of time to save the day. And, in one form or another, they always have. It’s been said that I have more lives than a cat.

This time, however…

I seriously think my time is up. My captor – could be anyone. While it’s one thing thinking we were so smart to have highlighted a serial killer, it’s another thing entirely to have had a suspect in mind – is mad and my health is failing at a great rate. I’m sleeping more and, although I know I have to, that I can’t just give up and die, I lack the energy to walk more than two or three laps of my room at a time. I also spend most of my lucid moments not on either planning how I could possibly escape or on hoping for rescue, but on dying. On what will actually get me first. Dehydration? Hypothermia?

Then there’s… Will my body even ever be found? Are they still looking for me? Is my will up-to-date?

Why me, comes into it fairly frequently to. To be killed by a Russian demanding information from you is one thing, to die not even knowing what you’re meant to have done however… Well, that just bites. He thinks I did something – clearly heinous in his opinion – to a child, but… What? What did I do? If he is our serial killer and he thinks he’s a great protector of children I can possibly see how his perceived abuse of a child might be his trigger. Perhaps each of his victims did something that involved the welfare of a child that he was witness to and that’s what set him on to them. Albeit in a warped sense, I get that. He’s delivering vengeance on behalf of the child and is firmly convinced that he’s on the side of good. There are other ways to go about it, of course, and it all has to be quite premeditated given the various deaths and lack of clues, but in his mind he well and truly has his reasons for doing what he does.

That, I get. What I don’t get though is how I managed to catch his attention. If he’s somehow discovered I was involved in linking all his past murders he’s not let on and, even if that did have something to do with his interest, the same old boring question raises its head again – why me? It was Sam who noticed Greenaway’s missing watch and it was thanks to the King having flagged it that we ever even knew about White Boy. Basically, I’m just an interested observer along for the ride, so… I can’t see how it could be that. Then again, nor can I see how it could possibly have anything to do with a child either. I just don’t have anything to do with them and, even if I did, it’s not like I’d ever knowingly hurt one.

He thinks I did though and that, given that he holds the upper hand, is just pretty much it. Judge, jury and executioner. He’s a regular one man show.

Regardless of the hows and the whys though, the one thing I’m sadly confident of is that he really is the killer behind our list of randomly linked murders. Thinking about his penchant for taking something from his victims, I – after deciding my watch would be too unimaginative, not to mention something he’d done already… and repetition doesn’t seem to be his thing – searched through my pockets and wallet again and discovered that the small silver St Christopher medallion I always carry in my wallet is missing. This, the loss of the medallion my great-grandfather carried with him through Word War One and which I’ve had with me ever since I received it on my eighteenth birthday, more than anything destroyed any sense of hope I had left. It’s only a ‘thing’, an item that never possessed any power to assist me, but realising that it was gone and most likely destined to pop up on the body of the next victim to follow me, it…

It just really brought home how serious my situation was. It was never good, and knowing didn’t change the darkness or coldness of my cell, but what it did change was the… magnitude… of the trouble I was in. I’m not just being held and about to be killed by any lowlife, I’m privileged enough to have come to the attention of a super cunning serial killer that until recently no one even knew existed. Just… Yay for me. My father always maintained I was destined for big things. I mean, why die in your sleep of old age when you can be immortalised in your very own chapter in a true crime novel?

Cold, depressed and weak, I toy with the idea of not rousing myself for another round of verbal pointlessness with my captor when I hear him stride up to the outside wall. It’s not like it’s going to achieve anything. I’ve resigned myself to the fact he’s focussed – and loopy – enough not to suddenly hear something in what I’m trying to get through to him and let me live. So, really, why bother? He doesn’t answer questions, won’t let me go to my grave at least knowing how or when I was meant to have done wrong to a child, but…

What the hell. It’s not like I’ve got anything better to do with my time.

“Good morning… or should that perhaps be good afternoon?” I call out hoarsely from my position on the floor as he comes to a stop by his usual spot near the boarded up window. “Maybe… good evening? Sorry. It’s a little hard to tell, what with being kept in the dark and all that.”

“Still with us then, I see,” the man replies in a flat voice that gives no indication whatsoever as to what he actually thinks of this.

“Well, I’m not going anywhere, am I?” I mutter. “The whole locked door pretty much puts paid to that, or have you forgotten about that and think I’m just hanging out here because it strikes me as a good idea?”

“Still lippy, too,” he responds with a sigh. “I do not know whether I should be disappointed that your demise is taking far longer than I expected, or impressed that my fervent wish for you to suffer is proving to be so successful.”

He’s been back a couple of times – two, three… four, maybe? As with everything it all just blurs together – and every time the ‘you must suffer’ mantra is his favourite. I remember thinking at one point that he’d chosen the wrong career path and instead of turning his delusions to killing he should have turned them to evangelism. Still, it could – odd though it may sound given the circumstances – be worse. His idea of suffering seems to be the double act of time and exposure which, compared to red hot pokers and sharp blades, is positively civilised. 

“Yeah, yeah. You want me to suffer,” I drawl. “I get it. I may be freezing and starving to death but I’m not stupid. So… Change the freaking record already, yeah?”

“Still lippy and still so very blasé,” the man responds. “You really are coping remarkably well. Have I perhaps misjudged your levels of masochism?”

“You wouldn’t know the first thing about suffering!” I snap, wearily dragging myself to my feet as I feel my last fragile hold on sanity beginning to fray. “This… This is uncomfortable and I might be going to die, but… Whoop-de-fucking-do. After what I’ve had to live through in the past, it’s nothing.”

“Excuse me?” Unless I’m mistaken he sounds surprised, taken aback even. “You… You would be surprised what I know about the suffering of the soul.”

Holding onto the window ledge in order to remain upright, I lean my cheek against a section of unbroken glass and, although it hurts, breathe deeply. “I doubt it,” I murmur, not really caring one iota if this proves to be an antagonising move. If I push his buttons deep enough that he comes rushing in here to finish me off then so be it. “Don’t tell me, let me guess. You once accidentally let a victim get away or something truly life destroying like that? If so, you really do have my deepest sympathies.”

The man snorts and, going by the sound of his footsteps, begins to pace. “It does not always pay to be so offhand in respect to that which you know nothing about,” he retorts, the words falling out of his mouth in a rush – as though he doesn’t want to be saying them but can’t help himself. “I have lost, and suffered dearly from this loss, more than you could ever imagine.”

“Oh yeah? Try me. Maybe you weren’t always the big tough psychopath you are now and someone once kicked over the sandcastle you’d spent all day making.”

“How dare you make light of my suffering! I have suffered terribly and, to this day, I am still suffering.”

“Boohoo. I still say you wouldn’t know the meaning of true suffering.”

“Shut up! I… I lost my wife!”

“Perhaps you should have tied a bell around her neck. Or… I know! A handwritten sign on a piece of cardboard. You know, like Paddington Bear.” I’m skating on thin ice but, just call it a side effect from the hypothermia, I don’t care. If I can’t go out fighting in the physical sense I’ll just have to settle for mouthing off.

“How… How dare you!” the man exclaims, slamming his hands against the wall and causing the timber to vibrate from the force. “She was taken from me, murdered in cold blood by a drug addict attempting to hold up a store. She… My beloved Louise, the only love of my life, died in my arms. I… Although I’m a doctor, an expert in my field, there was nothing I could do.”

“Sad.” And it is too, but I’ll be damned if I’ll feel sympathy for someone so anxious for me to take my last breath. “This may come as a shock to you, but people die everyday. While I’m at it, I doubt there’d be a person alive who hasn’t lost someone they love. Do they, however, flip out and go off the reservation like you so clearly have? I don’t think so.”

“She…” He pauses and, I sense, hesitates over continuing. “She was pregnant! He killed not only Louise but also our child. Our… much longed for and already adored… precious child…”

Okay. Not that I’m going to live long enough to share this light bulb moment with anyone, I think a few things are slowly beginning to slip into place. A most likely nice doctor was going quietly about his life when a gun toting drug addict ruined it by killing his pregnant wife. This causes something in his mind to snap and, fixated on children due to his loss, he then feels as thought he has to protect them and reacts – according to his now warped world of logic – with deathly intent when he sees one being threatened.

Take that, Behavioural Analysis Unit and profilers of the world.

“And again I say, boohoo,” I reply, deliberately sounding more sarcastic than I feel. “You’re right. You really are the king of suffering.”

“I have endured more grief these past few years than you have in your entire life,” the man replies with a loud sniff that leads me to wonder if he’s been crying. “There is nothing you could say to me that would make me believe otherwise.”

Oh dear. He really shouldn’t have said that.

“No?” Here it comes. I’m going to vent. “Next time you’re online looking for ways to creatively kill your next victim, enter the date the fifteenth of July nineteen-ninety-nine into Google and see what comes up under the heading of wedding massacre,” I state hollowly. “Hell, I think some sick fuck may have even added it to Wikipedia, so I’m confident you’ll find it.”

“So?”

“So it was my sister’s wedding,” I retort, hugging my arms tightly around my chest as a truly awful sense of numbness settles over me. “Look it up and see for your self. Disgruntled at his precious son not being accepted in to the navy, Doug Blesdale, went… to use the common phrase… postal at the first populated naval function he stumbled across. With a couple of automatic weapons he opened fire at the reception and killed fourteen…” My breath catching in my throat, I squeeze my eyes shut and force myself to press on. “My parents, my sister and her new husband who just happened to be my oldest friend, their three year old daughter, they… they were amongst those killed in Blesdale’s senseless rampage. I wasn’t hit, but I saw a bullet enter my niece’s forehead and blow the back of her head off, so…” It all being too much, I slump down onto the floor and slam my elbow back into the wall. “So don’t talk to me about suffering! I lost my entire family in a hail of bullets in what should have been the happiest of days, so… So, while I’m sorry you lost your wife it hardly compares!”

Not having it in me to add anymore, I wrap my arms around my knees and bury my head in my folded arms.

Unless I’m hallucinating, I think I hear him whisper the words ‘I’m sorry’ as he walks off.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

“Chris!”

“I still think we’re wasting our time.”

“Chris! Come on, Keel. If you’re here give us a sign!”

“I mean, do you honestly think we’re going to find him here?”

“Just shut up and search. Oh, and I’d watch what I was saying around Curtis, if I were you.”

“Fine. It’s just that I’m freezing my arse off out here and would be far happier back in…”

“Just search, will you!”

Despite being firmly convinced that I have to be dreaming the two male voices coming from somewhere outside my prison, I nonetheless prise my eyes open and slowly crawl closer to the wall. A sense of constant confusion having moved in courtesy of the growing hypothermia, I no longer take reality for granted and can’t tell what’s actually happened and what hasn’t. Did I really have that conversation with the man about suffering and did it really deteriorate into a sick game of one-upmanship? If I did, I’m disgusted with myself. To use what happened at the wedding like that is just wrong and I actually hope I have only imagined the exchange taking place.

“Chris!” A man’s voice, recognizable as one that should mean something to me even though I can’t place it. “For God’s sake! How big is this place?”

“It belongs to some high up professor, doesn’t it?” A different voice. Again, dimly recognisable even though I couldn’t name its owner if my life depended on it.

“Mmm… And apparent this is small compared the holiday home he’s currently at in Florida.”

“Rich bastard.”

“Keel could probably afford it. I’ve heard he’s loaded.”

Brilliant. If I am imagining this my subconscious really is going all out to make it as believable as possible. Idle gossip while conducting a search.

“Hey,” I croak, trying to coax my voice back to life as, coughing from the effort, I hammer weakly against the wood. “In here. I… I’m in here.”

“Did you hear that?”

“Uh-huh… I thought it came from inside the stable, what about you?”

“Definitely the stable. You go tell the others while I go in.”

As promising as what I’m hearing sounds, I don’t believe that I’m finally about to be saved even as the sounds of frantic banging – and much swearing – reach my ears from directly outside my cell. I’m still not entirely certain – confusion equals mind playing tricks, remember? – that it’s real when the door bursts open and dull light floods the room. Having been in the dark for so long, the sudden light hurts my eyes and I lift my hand to shield them as my rescuer rushes over to me.

“You might look like shit, but at least you’re alive,” he announces with a grin as he crouches down and gives my arm a quick pat. “You really had us worried, you know.”

Sorry. If only I’d know that I wouldn’t have allowed myself to get abducted.

Squinting at the man, I recognise him as Alan Parker – the Agency’s answer to an office joker – and grunt. “Don’t feel alive,” I mutter, allowing him to, with difficulty, help me to my feet. “Oh…”

“Whoa!” Parker exclaims as, my legs not feeling as though they’re attached to my body, I sway and almost fall. “It’s all right, I’ve got you. Come on, let’s get you outside. Maybe some fresh air will make you feel better.”

“Drugs will make me feel better,” I mumble, slumping against Parker. “Drugs, a shower and a warm bed.” 

“Sorry. All I can offer is the fresh air,” he replies, stumbling under my weight as we slowly make our way out of the room. “Nice digs, by the way. I hear the ‘rustic look’ is very… in… this year.”

“You can never go wrong with straw,” I wheeze, not wanting to look behind me to see for myself the state of my (enforced) home for the past however many days. Too dazed to lift my head and the light still hurting my eyes, I don’t take in much of my surroundings as we stagger along but what little I do manage to make out confirms that I was indeed being kept in the back of a stable. Empty stalls, straw everywhere, a saddle lying abandoned and uncared for in a puddle of water, the lingering scent of eau de equine everywhere. “How… How did you find me?”

“We think the sim card was reinserted in your phone,” Parker explains as we leave the stable and walk through a rusty gate into a lush, overgrown garden. “We’d tried locating it, to no avail,” he continues, leading me over to a rickety looking bench, “then we tried turning it on remotely, but that didn’t work because the sim had obviously been removed. Then, out of the blue, a couple of hours ago it just started emitting again and, well, here we are.”

“He put the sim card back in even though he knew it would most likely lead to my rescue?” I muse, collapsing onto the bench. “What? That doesn’t make any sense.”

Parker shrugs and looks around the garden with an anxious expression on his long, thin face. “Don’t ask me,” he mutters, cocking his head to the left and looking relieved at the sound of footsteps heading our way reaches us, “we just rallied the troops when the Bat Signal started beaming.”

“Chris!” The instantly familiar sound of Sam’s voice floating across the garden being music to my ears, I tentatively lift my head and peer, still half blind, in the direction it’s coming from. “Thank God you’re okay.”

“We found him in a darkened room at the back of the stables over there,” Parker states as Sam jogs over to join us. “Locked up pretty tight, too.”

“Darkened room?” Sam echoes with more than a hint of exasperated annoyance in his voice. “Parker, you imbecile!” he continues, sitting down next to me on the bench and gently placing a pair of sunglasses on my nose that he’d pulled from his pocket. “If he’s been kept in the dark, the daylight, overcast though it may be, is probably killing him. You should have thought of that before dragging him out here.”

“Sorry,” Parker murmurs, directing his response more at me than at Sam, who, I suspect he’s currently feeling none too kindly towards. “It’s just… Well, it’s just that the smell in there was…”

“Just go and find Horvath,” Sam interrupts, waving Parker away before putting his hands on my shoulder and slowly turning me to face him. “Get the paramedics too,” he adds, frowning. “And make sure they bring a thermal blanket.” Pausing, he shakes his head and, obviously not caring whether anyone sees or not, places his arm around my shoulders and pulls me tightly against his side. “You’re freezing.”

“And apparently I smell, and my head is pounding, and if I wasn’t sitting down I think I’d fall on my ass, and I’m dying of thirst, and… and I’ve never been so happy to see you in my life,” I reply, thankful for the sunglasses because they’ve taken enough of an edge off the light to allow me to actually focus on Sam. He seems tired, exhausted even, with dark shadows under his eyes and a haunted look colouring his pale skin. To me though he’s still incredible looking and, although I’ve accepted that this is real, that I really have been saved, I can hardly believe he’s here sitting next to me.

“You know,” Sam murmurs, resting his hand on my thigh and giving it a squeeze, “I’ve got to confess to being quite happy to see you too.”

“Only happy?”

“Overjoyed.”

“That’s better,” I whisper as, suddenly, I realise I’ve got news, important news, that I need to share. “It… It was him! The guy who abducted me, it was the serial killer! The one who killed your friend Tim and who we’ve been tracking the victims of…”

“What?” My statement giving Sam something other than his increasingly too close for comfort visual inspection of me to think about, he frowns and gives me a strange look. “Are you… sure?” he queries, failing in his – I suspect valiant – attempt to disguise either his disbelief or suspicion. “You’ve been through a lot these past few days, Chris, and… and you’re sick. Maybe you’re mind is…”

Although I’m not surprised at Sam’s reluctance to take my statement at face value I’m still annoyed by his response and, regardless of the fact he can’t see them behind the glasses, narrow my eyes in a glare. “I may be suffering from hypothermia and be well overdue my next dose of meds, but I’m not hallucinating,” I retort, giving a vehement shake of my head and immediately wishing I hadn’t because it leaves me feeling even more light headed than I already was. “It was him. I first thought it when he raved on about how every one of his kills had to be different from the last, and…” Coughing weakly, I inch closer to Sam and try to ignore how I’m trembling. “My great-grandfather’s medallion, the one I always carry in my wallet… It’s gone.”

“The St Christopher?” His ‘I’ll humour you because you’re unwell and suffered an unpleasant ordeal’ expression changing to one of shock, Sam looks at me through wide eyes and appears to struggle over what to say next. “That’s…”

“Just my luck,” I finish drily. “He kept saying that he’d chosen me because of something he’d seen me do to a child. What my alleged crime was, however, is anyone’s guess. I kept asking him to tell me but he never did, just kept going on about how I’d brought this on my self and had to suffer. He… He’s unbalanced, yeah, but in a scarily in control and intelligent way.”

“Great,” Sam mutters, gesturing the paramedics over as both they and Horvath walk into the garden. “Is there anything else you can remember, anything else that might help us hunt him down?”

“He’s not here then?” I murmur, knowing the answer before I’ve even finished asking the question and not even knowing why I bothered asking it in the first place. Parker’s fresh air, it’s getting to me I think. “Of course he isn’t. Don’t answer that.”

“We’re thinking he returned the sim to your phone and then hotfooted it out of here,” Sam responds, removing his arm from around my shoulder and nodding to Horvath as he walks across the lawn to the bench. “Now, think… I know this is probably asking a lot, but if there’s anything you can add that you think we might be able to use…”

Sam’s gentle prompting is a skill I’ve had to use myself with victims many time in the past and I have to say I don’t very much like being the one on the receiving end of it. Not because I resent the questioning but because it’s a form of pressure I just don’t feel up to at the moment. What if I miss something important? Worse, what if what I honestly think took place really is just a product of my stressed imagination? 

“He… I think I remember him saying that he’s a doctor,” I reply, concentrating on directing my reply to Sam as our commander listens intently and the paramedics hover impatiently nearby. “Top of his field, or something like that. He had a wife. She…” Hell. I don’t even want to be remembering this, let alone voicing it. “She was pregnant. I… I think they’d been trying for a baby for ages. She died… No! Sorry. She was murdered and it was this loss, the loss of his wife and his unborn child, that set him off. It… Maybe it was a couple of years ago? Her name… He mentioned her name. It… It was…” 

Although I don’t want to let my audience down, I’m about to give a shrug of defeat when it hits me. Not just her name but a leap of logic that could be as spectacular as it could be truly delusional. “Louise!” I exclaim. “Her name was Louise and I think I know who he might be,” I continue agitatedly as, sharing a look, the two paramedics move closer. “The man I met in the cemetery that night when he found me cleaning his wife’s tombstone… I can’t remember his name but it could be him. The engraving on the headstone mentioned an unborn baby and, now that I think about it, the way this guy spoke was similar… Same cultured accent and precision speech. I… I could be way off but… but I think it’s worth looking it to.”

“Curtis,” Horvath announces, motioning my partner over to him as, seeing their opportunity, the paramedics swoop in and begin fussing over me. “A word.”

Sam, although he’s had ample experience of my random leaps of logic – and how they’re occasionally proven correct – is frowning and looking far from convinced as he gets up from the bench and joins our commander under a nearby tree. I know in myself that it’s pretty far-fetched and that I’d be a little happier with my theory if it was one I’d actually had time to formulate instead of just blurting it out, but… I feel I could be on to something. I just do.

I also, however, feel as though it’s well past my bedtime and that – in the all of fifteen or so minutes I’ve been free – I’ve overfilled my excitement quota for one day and subsequently let the paramedics prod and poke me without a murmur of complaint. Muttering under their breath about dehydration and looking disapprovingly at my blood pressure readings, they’ve just decided that I need to be packed off into the ambulance when Sam walks back over.

“Sorry,” he murmurs as, clearly peeved as a result of his conversation with Horvath he shoos the paramedics away with the sarcastic suggestion that if they want me in the ambulance they might want to go and get the stretcher unless they’re planning on giving me a piggyback. Neither look particularly impressed but, after looking me up and down and leaving me with the impression they estimate my weight to be equivalent to that of a baby elephant, they dutifully trot off with not so much as an annoyed huff.

“Horvath wants me to start the running with what you’ve just told us,” Sam continues, making a point of avoiding my gaze even though he crouches down in front of me and places his hands on my knees. “I really am sorry as I’d planned on coming to the hospital with you, but…”

“Catching this lunatic is more important than holding my hand,” I interrupt with a tired shrug as the idea of being on a stretcher and hopefully pumped full of drugs suddenly strikes me as being a good one. Sitting here, having to focus and feign competency, it’s becoming too much. “It’s okay, Sam. I understand and, despite how my last hospital visit ended up, assure you that I’ll be fine. I just want to sleep anyway…”

“And I’d still prefer to…” Trailing off, Sam stands up and glances over his shoulder at Horvath who’s waiting for him by the gate. “I’d better go,” he mutters, sighing. “You have my word though that I’ll join you as soon as I’m able to.” 

“See you then,” I whisper to his retreating back as the paramedics return with the stretcher and help me on to it. The thin mattress feeling like the most comfortable thing I’ve ever lain on in my life, I’m out for the count even before the ambulance is in sight.

~*~

“I still don’t think this is a good idea,” Parker announces peevishly as he opens the door into the reception area and gestures me through it.

Using great restraint, I don’t inform him that I really couldn’t give a rat’s ass what he thinks and step aside to let a far too cheerful looking nurse push a grumpy looking old man in a wheelchair through the door first. “I’m an adult,” I mutter tetchily as, the nurse having sashayed past, I step through the door and make a beeline for the exit. “What’s more,” I continue, “having passed that stupid mini-mental test with flying colours, I’m also fully compos mentis. So, rest assured that should I trip over my own feet, knock myself out or expire in my sleep, you will not be held accountable.”

“It’s not a lawsuit or even Horvath I’m worried about,” Parker replies, getting in step with me as we make our way through the busy reception area. “It’s Curtis. If anything happens to you again I don’t want to be around when he finds out, that’s all.” Pausing, he gives me an odd look. “What is it with you two anyway? Even if you were partnered before you seem awfully close.”

“We’ve known each other a long time,” I reply, not liking the possibly malicious gleam of interest in Parker’s close-set eyes as he looks at me with what may very well be an expression of hope – as in thinking he could be about to hear a spot of juicy gossip – on his face. “Plus, you’re supposed to trust your partner and, subsequently, worry about them. It makes for a stronger partnership.” I give a lopsided shrug that takes more out of me than I care admit. “If anything happened to you I’m sure Wilson would do whatever it took to see you safe.”

“Yeah, probably,” Parker mumbles, hiding his disappointment at the dullness of my textbook response behind a stern look. “I still think this is a bad idea.”

“Yeah, yeah. So you’ve said already.”

“You should be in hospital.”

“Dr Gupta didn’t exactly waste a lot of breath on trying to convince me to stay when I said I wanted to go home.”

“He’s a smart man. He most likely didn’t want to get concussion from banging his head against a brick wall.”

“I’m fine. If I wasn’t he would have put his foot down. End of story.”

“Mmm… Fine. You say that, however, without the benefit of being able to see what I can see. Grey skin? I’m here to tell you now it’s not particularly becoming.”

“It’s probably just dirt,” I retort, firmly keeping to myself the fact that if I look anywhere near as awful as I feel then, hey, there’s a good chance I look like one of the walking dead. “Look, Parker. I just want to go home, have an extremely long shower and go to bed. I’m not going to get behind the wheel of a car or operate heavy machinery and nor am I going to head straight for the gym or Tesco the second you leave. I… I just don’t want to be in hospital, okay?”

Parker shrugs and walks through the sliding glass out onto the footpath in front of me. “Like there’s anything I can say that would change your mind, “ he responds as, looking fed up with his baby sitting duties, he marches up the first cab at the rank and opens the door. “If Curtis or anyone else for that matter has a go at me I’ll just send them straight in your pigheaded direction.”

Clambering into the cab, I bite back a sigh of relief – show weakness, never! – and settle myself on the cab’s bench seat. “You do that,” I grunt, waiting until Parker has joined me in the cab before giving the driver my address and resting my head against the cool glass of the window. “Look, Parker, if you’d like to be dropped off at the office, or anywhere else for that matter, just say the word. You’ve done what you were asked to do and that’s see me to the hospital. Nothing was said about you having to remain my faithful shadow and, seriously, you really do have my word that I’m not up to anything and am just going to shower, dutifully drink another bottle of water, and go to bed. Now, unless hanging around to witness that appeals to you in some sort of warped way, how about just leaving me to it?”

“Trust me, it doesn’t appeal,” Parker replies drily as, frowning in concentration, he appears to weigh up his options. “You’re right though, I was only told to accompany you to the hospital,” he adds, his expression brightening at the thought of extricating himself from my less than fascinating company.

“Uh-huh. So, the office it is then?”

“Only if you’re sure you’ll be okay?”

“I’ll be fine.” The conversation having run its course as far as I’m concerned, I put an end to it by asking the driver to take a detour via the office to drop Parker off and neither of us say another word until the cab has pulled up in the ‘No Parking’ zone in the front of our building. Then Parker forces himself to extract a promise from me that I won’t push myself or do anything stupid before climbing out of the cab and with a spring his step – ‘thank God almighty, free at last!’ – disappearing inside.

Pleased, despite my close to four days spent alone in dark room, to be on my own and no longer having to feign a level of energy and coherency that both my mind and body are struggling to maintain, I wave the driver on and settle myself more comfortably on the seat. Thanks largely to the fluid drip fed into me by the kind paramedics and the long sleep I had in the back of the ambulance because the M20 decided today would be a good day to resemble a parking lot, I do actually feel far better than I have ever since I thought I was simply leaving the hospital to go home. My head hurts, my limbs don’t necessarily always feel connected to my body and chest x-rays have confirmed I’ve still got a mild dose of pneumonia but, all things considered, I’m not too bad. And, while the doctor would have preferred for me to have at least stayed overnight for observation he really didn’t put up much of an argument to stop me from leaving. It’s a bit of a case of same old, same old, really. Keep up the fluids and vitamins, take the antibiotics – which, in my haste to get out of the hospital I forgot to pick up… ooops – as directed and painkillers as needed, keep warm and rest, rest, rest. None of which, really, needs to involve nursing care or be done in a hospital bed.

I’m still alive and in one vaguely dithery piece and, well, life it just goes on. 

That’s my theory anyway, the one I’m subscribing to at the moment, and I’m going to do everything I can to stick to it.

It’s raining steadily by the time we’ve reached my apartment but I don’t even notice until I’m standing on the driveway and paying the driver through the driver’s side window. Startled by this, not because I’m getting wet but because I honestly hadn’t even been aware that it was raining, I wave the driver off and, fumbling over pulling my keys out of my pocket, hurry up the path to the front door. Unlocking it and going inside, I carefully close and lock the door behind me and completely on autopilot drag myself up the stairs before coming to a – where am I, what am I doing here? – flatfooted stop by the dining table.

Although I’m… home… alone… and quietly satisfied at having got my own way, I feel… at a complete loss, as though I’m detached from my actual surroundings and don’t know how to connect or interact with them. I wasn’t lying to Parker when I said I wanted a shower and to crawl into bed, but now that I can actually achieve these desires – with ease and within minutes of each other – I find that my interest is… lacking. I want to be clean and to sleep in my own bed, but the thought of following through with these wishes eludes me. All I have to do is walk into the bedroom, get a pair of pyjamas from a drawer, go into the en suite, undress, shower, dry off, dress, go to bed – all very easy, nothing hard.

When, after an undisclosed period of time has passed, I finally move, instead of heading to the bathroom though I walk through the kitchen and utility room, unlock the back door and step outside. It’s still raining, if anything even harder than when I got out of the cab, but while common sense tells me I’m being stupid, that I should wait or at the very least get an umbrella, I push on and make my way out into the cemetery. Icy wind buffets me and rain lashes my face but, just about numb from the feet up, I hardly feel it. 

The weather being of a sort to deter even the most loyal of mourners, the cemetery is empty of any sign of human life and despite never having returned to it since the night I scrubbed it clean of the drunk’s vomit, I’m able to find the woman’s grave with effortless ease. Lying at the foot of the headstone is a huge bouquet of red roses and the paper wrapping them still resembles actual paper instead of – thanks to the rain – paper mache which tells me they’re still fresh and can’t have been out here all that long. 

~*~  
Louise Marie Westbury  
and  
Madison Louise Westbury  
(in utero)

Tragically taken from their husband & father, Jonathon  
18 December 2007

Eternally Beloved  
~*~

Jonathon… That’s right. I remember now that he introduced himself as Jonathon Westbury and that the look of grief on his face was as raw as if he’d only buried his wife the day before. He called me a good person and I felt sorry for him. Sorry for his loss and obvious sadness. If he is my abductor and our serial killer though – and I have nothing other than my gut guiding me, but I honestly think he is – where does that leave my feelings for him? What he’s done is wrong and inexcusable, that goes without saying, but extreme grief can make a person capable of anything. And… What about me? Do I look at Jonathon and, see what could perhaps have become of me, and experience a ‘there but for the grace of God’ moment? His wife and unborn child were murdered and, unable to do anything to stop it, he had to watch them leave him. Some cruel, selfish individual took those that mattered most to him and there was nothing he, a highly trained – in this case – medical professional, could do about it.

I…

I know how he feels.

There’s no forgiving or really understanding what he’s become, but I can’t help it, I still feel for him.

Blesdale, an unmedicated schizophrenic with an obsession for collecting navy memorabilia and who had enough guns to arm a small militia movement, saved the last bullet in his gun du jour for himself. I’ve often wondered if I would have sought my own revenge if he’d survived. I certainly, regardless of the fact I knew he was already dead and that I was wasting my time, spent longer than I care to admit coming up with what I could have done to him if I’d had the opportunity. Most of these bloody delusions had more in common with underground graphic novels than they did reality and to this day I’m not entirely sure what I actually would have done if he had survived and I had got my hands on him. Thinking about it though, planning how I could have made him feel even a small percentage of the pain I was feeling every single fucking waking moment, that I was good at.

I still marvel at how I managed to make it at all. Life goes on, there’s no denying the inevitability of it, but there are some days where you really wonder how… The gnawing, crushing agony of your loss, the cloying sympathy of well meaning onlookers, the thought of having to carry on each and every future day without them, the ever present knowledge that you’ll never see them again…

But you do go on. You don’t know how, and some days are worse than others, but you endure and persevere and gradually things begin to improve a little. You get hit by random memories of good times instead of suddenly realising all over again that they’re gone… and the memories make you smile instead of tearing up. You celebrate the life you had together instead of dwelling on the destruction of it. New people come into your life. New people to love and treasure and who give you fresh reason to go on. They’ll never replace the others, never fully repair the damage done to your heart and soul by their deaths, but they’re precious nonetheless and you’re thankful for the presence they have in your perhaps-not-so-depressing-after-all-life.

That’s what happened to me, anyway. Jonathon, however, clearly wasn’t as lucky and I think something important may have broken irreparably that day he watched his wife die. 

“Chris! For crying out loud, what are you doing out here?”

The sound of Sam’s voice shocking me into some semblance of dazed and confused life, I jerk my head up and watch him stride across the sodden lawn of the cemetery towards me. Thankfully not suffering from the momentary lapses in logic that appear to be plaguing me at the moment, he’s carrying a large black umbrella and staring at me with a look of astonishment on his face.

“First you insist on leaving the hospital and now I find you looking like a drowned rat out here,” he continues, giving me a long suffering look as he walks up to the back of the headstone. “Seriously, Chris. Have you got rocks in your…” Trailing off as something seems to catch his eye on the grass, he frowns, gives me an odd look, and crouches down behind the tombstone. “I don’t believe this…” 

“Don’t believe what?” I query dutifully, thankful to whatever it is he’s found for diverting his attention and hopefully saving me from a lecture. “Sam?”

Standing up, Sam holds his gloved hand out for me to see his discovery and I gasp as I realise that the small silver medallion lying flat on his palm is my St Christopher medal. “Oh…”

“He must have put it on the top of the headstone and the wind blew it off,” Sam replies softly as he looks at me for a few seconds before slipping the medal into the pocket of his coat. “Not so much as trusting you to remain on your feet at the moment, I think I’ll keep a hold of this for the time being.”

“It’s him, isn’t it?” I murmur, shaking my head and blinking rain out of my eyes as Sam walks around the tombstone and holds his umbrella over my head. “I was prepared to accept that my idea was a… flight of fantasy… but… The medal, how else would it have got there?”

“It’s looking more and more like Jonathon Westbury is our man,” Sam responds, gently linking his arm around my elbow and beginning to tug me along with him in the direction of my apartment. “Come on, you daft bugger. Let’s get you inside and in bed, where, and I don’t even think I need to mention this, you belong.”

“I… I just needed…” 

“You just needed to see the grave,” Sam finishes with a kind, understanding smile. “I gathered that and, knowing you, it even makes a reasonable degree of sense. Hopefully you’ve got it out of your system though as once we’re inside I’m going to see to it personally that that’s where you stay until I’m convinced you’re well enough to venture out into the world again.”

“I… I’m…” Stopping myself from adding ‘fine’ because, let’s face it, I’m far from fine, I fall silent and allow Sam to lead me inside. 

Locking the door behind him, Sam folds up his umbrella and places it in the utility room’s sink before brushing largely imaginary rain droplets off his jacket and gesturing me towards the kitchen. “Go on,” he states, retrieving his phone from his pocket as, pathetically grateful to him for telling me what to do (because the fact of the matter is I’d still be out at the grave in the rain if he hadn’t shown up and effectively taken over), I do a I’m told and head slowly into the kitchen. “I’m just going to ring Andrew to see if he can do me a favour and pick up your prescriptions and drop them off here,” he adds. “You go and get in the shower and I’ll bring some pyjamas in when I’m finished on the phone.”

Nodding, I drip my way through the kitchen, leaving wet footprints, grass and mud in my wake. Although I’m dimly aware of Sam voice as he speaks to Andrew, a doctor friend of his, I make no attempt to eavesdrop and simply concentrate on putting one foot after the other. Feeling disoriented and disconnected enough at is, the ability to multi task – both listen and walk? I really don’t think so – is well out of my grasp at the moment and I’m wondering how I’m going to manage in the shower – successfully removing clothing seeming a big enough ask without throwing in getting the water temperature right, remaining upright and actually washing myself – when, out of the corner of my eye as I’m nearing my bedroom door, I see it.

The Christmas tree. 

Paige’s Christmas tree. Still bare save for the one red glass bauble I placed on it before being called away by first a phone call and then my own short attention span. Still magnificent though, even in its au naturale state.

Still a potent reminder of my family and of my loss too.

Although I’m not conscious of doing it, I become aware of the strange, almost keening sound coming out of my mouth just as my knees give way beneath me and I slump, a sodden, trembling wreck, down onto the floor. An obliterating sense of indescribable emotion blankets me. My throat burning, I struggle for breath and blink back tears I can feel welling as though out of nowhere in my eyes.

It…

Everything. 

It’s all just too much.

“Chris! Hey… What’s the matter?” Sounding about as panicked as I’ve ever heard him, Sam runs over and crouches down next to me. “Hey… Come on. It’s okay. You’re safe now.”

Too embarrassed by my behaviour to look at him, I cover my face with my hands and, all the time fighting to get my breathing under control, continue to make a noise like an animal in pain. If a wish granting fairy suddenly landed on my shoulder and offered me one wish I wouldn’t hesitate to go the route of having the ground open up and swallow me. I’m being… ridiculous… yet I can’t stop myself. Thoughts, jumbled and disjointed, fly through my mind at the speed of light.

How could I?

Just… How could I have allowed myself to have gone so hideously low?

“Hey… Chris…” Taking matters into his own hands – literally – Sam grabs my wrists and gently tugs my hands away from my face. “You’re worrying me,” he continues thickly, letting go of my wrists only to wrap his arms around me and pull me close, “and, I’m sorry, I’ve just about had my quota of worry where you’re concerned for this month.”

“I… He made me… No!” Shaking my head even as I clench my fingers around Sam’s shirt, I sniff miserably and, peering over his shoulder, keep my gaze fixed on the polished floorboards. “No, he… He didn’t make me, he… he… reduced… me,” I stammer, willing the right words to describe my anguish to just magically appear in my mouth. “He reduced me to a level I… I should never have allowed myself to reach…”

“What are you talking about?” Sam queries, sounding both taken aback and concerned as, apparently immune to how wet and bedraggled I am, he uses the heel of his palm to rub soothing circles against my back. “Did that bastard do something to you?”

“No… Not like that, not like you’re thinking,” I murmur, breathing deeply in an attempt to get control of myself. “Once he’d gotten me in the room he never lay a finger on me, but…” Shaking my head again, I accidentally catch sight of Sam’s tired, anxious expression and this causes another blow to my already shattered psyche. It’s clear that I’m worrying him and my inability to explain what’s wrong with me – now – is, in my mind, yet another black mark against me.

Taking a deep breath, I rest my head on Sam’s shoulder so I don’t have to look at him and just… hope – that I’m able to make at least a modicum of sense – for the best. “He told me that no one had endured a loss like he had, that no one knew suffering like he did and… and… Oh God, Sam! Something inside me just snapped! I… The wedding… I took it and I… I threw it in his face. I reduced it to a game of one-upmanship that I was determined to win and… and just thinking about it makes me sick.”

“When was this?” Sam asks plainly as he moves his hands onto my shoulders and pushes me just far enough back so that I can no longer avoid looking at him without appearing too obvious about it.

“When was what?” I sniff, the oddness of Sam’s question being just what I needed in terms of having something else to think about.

“When did this… conversation… take place?”

“Conversation? Ha! More like… sick game of my suffering is worse than yours.”

“Fine. When did this sick… game… take place?”

“Uh… It was our last conversation, actually. The next voices I heard were Parker’s and… uh… whoever it was with him.”

“So… After you, in no uncertain terms, won this… game… of suffering, he went and returned the sim card to your phone… thus allowing you to be found.”

Sam’s response surprising me, I cock my head to one side and blink at him. “Maybe… So?”

“So maybe something in what you’d said got through to him somehow. Made him, I don’t know, think, well, yes, you had perhaps suffered enough,” Sam murmurs, stroking his fingers along my cheek. “Think about it, Chris. Your story saved you. Or, to put it another way, your… family… saved you.”

“I…” Seeing a welcome degree of sense in Sam’s words, I stop sniffing and loosen my grip on his shirt. “I hadn’t thought about it like that.”

“You don’t say,” Sam replies with a tentative smile. “Now, I can understand why the thought of what you did hurts, but I honestly believe… and don’t ask me why… something in what you said got through to Westbury and he deliberately left you to be found, so…”

“So get a grip?” I offer, fully letting go of Sam’s shirt and wiping the back of my hand across my eyes.

“I wasn’t going to put it exactly like that.”

“But it’ll do?”

“If it means you’ll let me help you off the floor and finally into the shower, then, yes, it’ll do,” Sam responds, getting to his feet and holding his hand out to me. “Come on. You can’t stay down there all night.”

Quietly convinced that if Sam wasn’t here I really could stay here in a crumpled heap on the floor, I place my hand in his and let him help me up. “Thanks,” I whisper as, keeping a hold my hand, he begins to lead me towards the bedroom. “For everything. Sam, I… I really appreciate it.”

“But I haven’t done anything,” Sam responds dismissively, giving me a glance over his shoulder as we walk through the bedroom and into the en suite.

“You’re here,” I state simply, my fingers fumbling over getting my clothes off as Sam turns the shower on. “That’s enough to be grateful for.”

~*~

Waking from a deep and thankfully dreamless sleep, I sit up and stretch languidly. The time on the clock radio reads quarter past one in the afternoon. This means, barring the few times I’ve been woken to have more water and more pills poured down my throat, I’ve slept for the better part of an entire day. Instead of feeling refreshed and ready to take on anything though I feel like I’ve been hit by a truck. I also feel as though I’d quite like nothing more than to pull the blankets over my head and go back to sleep. My bladder however has other ideas and as the need to relieve myself is far more pressing than my desire to return to sleep I reluctantly fling back the bedding, stand up and wobble into the bathroom. 

Once I’m done in there I make my way back into the bedroom and sink down on the edge of the bed. As great as the urge is to stretch out on the mattress and close my eyes – sleep equates to not having to think and that in turn equates to my current idea of bliss – I resist it and, rubbing the sleep out of my eyes, remain sitting on the mattress.

The sound of movement coming from the other side of the closed bedroom door telling me that Sam’s still here almost brings a smile to my face. As does the clearly slept in sight of the other side of my bed. He stayed. He’s still here. Two beacons of light in an otherwise pretty bleak world. I’m pleased he’s here, relieved too, but it’s not enough to make me feel…

Well, anything, really.

I have so much to be thankful for. I know that. I do. I’m still alive, not in all that much worse condition than I was in before Westbury nabbed me, Sam’s here, I’m safe… Yet still I feel empty. Depressed, even.

Not wanting to give in to the feelings of doom circling around my head, I force myself to stand up and, opening the door, walk out of the bedroom. Sam, with his glasses that I never fail to find oddly endearing perched on his nose, is sitting at the end of the dining table furthest from my bedroom door, his attention focussed on the laptop computer set up in front of him. His iPad lies behind the laptop and to its right sits a small portable printer. Power cords connect his portable office to the electricity socket in the wall and I wonder idly how long it’ll take me and my lethargic shuffle to trip over them. Loose pieces of paper and files are spread over almost the entirety of the dining table and my boxes of Christmas ornaments have been moved onto the chairs for their own safety.

Alerted to my presence no doubt by the sound of the door opening, Sam looks up, frowns, and immediately jumps to his feet. “What are you doing up?”

“Toilet,” I mutter with a half-assed shrug that probably makes me look as pathetic as I feel. “What’s going on here?”

“I’m working on tracking Westbury’s movements for the past few years,” Sam replies as he walks up to me and places his hand on my arm. “You should be in bed.”

Although my body is telling me the same thing, I shake my head. “Need a change of scenery,” I mumble, pulling my arm free of Sam’s hold and glancing in the direction of the living room. “Don’t worry. I’m only thinking of going as far as the sofa.”

“That should be okay,” Sam responds, his unconvinced expression at odds with his – reluctant – verbal acceptance. “You need to keep warm though,” he continues, disappearing into the bedroom before I have time to reply and quickly returning with a robe I’d honestly forgotten I had and which I don’t even know how he found and a pair of slippers. “Here. Put these on, and don’t try to argue because it’s either look like a grandfather or I’m going to insist you go back to bed.”

“I feel like I’m about five hundred, so I may as well look like it too,” I reply, letting Sam help me into the robe and slipping my feet into the slippers. “Thanks.”

“Are you sure you should be up? Andrew was adamant that what you need more than anything is rest.”

“I’m going to the sofa, not packing to climb Mount Everest.”

“I still…”

“Sam… I’m fine.”

Something in my stubborn tone telling Sam to give up, he shrugs his acceptance and starts to walk towards the kitchen. “If the sofa is where you really want to be then go. I’ll just fix you something to eat and will bring it in to you.”

“I’m not hungry,” I call out, hoping to stop him even though I know I’m only wasting my breath.

“You need to eat,” Sam retorts, pausing by the kitchen door to turn around and fix me with a look. “Go on. You go and make yourself comfortable on the sofa before I change my mind and chase you back to bed.”

“Some chase it’d be,” I mutter as, hugging my robe around me, I meander into the living room and promptly collapse onto the sofa. The blanket I’d been using to huddle under while feeling sick and sorry for myself before falling so spectacularly down the stairs is lying neatly folded – by Sam’s hands, no doubt – on the back of the sofa and, grabbing it, I spread it out over my legs. Slippers, robe and blanket – the grandfather look, as Sam called it, is now complete.

Although the remote for the television is within reach I don’t bother picking it up because the thought of watching – or even staring blankly at – anything just doesn’t appeal at all. Nor does trying to read and I’m struggling to keep my eyes open as Sam walks into the room carrying a tray laden down with everything he thinks I probably need. Water, pills, what looks to be a plate of grilled cheese on toast and, as I doubt he’d be allowing me caffeine yet, a cup of coffee for him.

“You shouldn’t have gone to so much trouble,” I murmur as he places the tray on the coffee table and hands me the bottle of water before proceeding to tip into his palm a selection of the pills Andrew was kind enough to bring around last night.

“It’s no trouble,” Sam replies – just as I knew he would – as he gives me the pills and watches me like a hawk until I’ve dutifully swallowed them and washed them down with half the bottle of water. He then hands me the plate containing the grilled cheese before walking over to the armchair and taking a seat. “Now eat.”

“Yes, master.” Although I know I should be hungry, I’m just not and my stomach does a lazy loop of protest at the thought of actually having to deal with something in it. Not wanting to disappoint Sam though, not when he’s gone to so much effort and is looking so concerned, I force myself to pick up the toast and take a bite. It tastes better than expected and I slowly finish the slice once I’m convinced my stomach is going to keep it down. “I didn’t know I had cheese,” I comment, making to place the plate with the remaining piece of toast on it on the coffee table until the disapproving look on Sam’s face stops me and makes me – casually -- return it to my lap.

“I managed to fit in some shopping once I’d finished in the office this morning,” Sam responds, his gaze only leaving me once I’ve picked up the toast and taken a nibble. “Hopefully your fridge will be able to cope with the shock of actually being full of food for a change.”

“Full?”

“Mmm… I forgot to write a list and just bought everything I thought we might need. You’ll have to take a look. I doubt you’ve ever seen it so full before.”

“Oh.” I choke down the remainder of the grilled cheese and deposit the empty plate on the coffee table. “We? You’re planning on… staying… then?”

His eyebrow raising at the – unintentionally – ungrateful tone of my voice, Sam shrugs and stares down into his coffee cup. “I’d planned to. But if you don’t want me…”

“No!” I interrupt, annoyed at myself for having so much as given him that impression. “I didn’t mean to sound so… lacklustre. Of course I want you to stay. I just don’t want to put you out, that’s all.”

“You’re not putting me out,” Sam replies indifferently as he takes a sip of coffee. “I can work here as well as I can anywhere.”

“But…”

“I want to be here.”

There being something final in the way Sam states this, I give up on trying to put into words that although I really do want him with me I’m just no fun to be around at the moment and don’t want to inadvertently drag him down to my depressed level and settle for nodding. “Thanks.”

“There’s nothing to thank me for,” Sam responds with another shrug, his gaze meeting mine for a second before, to my surprise, he blushes slightly and looks away. “I’m just glad you’re here.”

A flare of warmth ignites in me at the quiet sincerity evident in Sam’s soft tone. Instead of replying in kind though for fear of embarrassing him and ruining the moment I quickly decide to fly off on a completely random tangent. “The whole robe, slippers and blanket look I’m rocking here,” I state apropos of absolutely nothing, “reminds me that I want a cat. Think about it, wouldn’t a cat draped along the back of the sofa just complete the picture?”

“That would have to be the most unique reason I’ve ever heard for wanting a pet,” Sam retorts, giving me a strange look that I just can’t translate. “Besides, you’re not going to be looking like a geriatric on the sofa for ever.”

“Well, no… But I still think I’d quite like a cat.” It’s true. I would. It may not be the most sensible idea I’ve ever entertained, and, yes, the poor animal would probably spend a fair percentage of time needing to be boarded while I was away for work, but the thought of having something furry and feline to come home to definitely appeals.

“Just promise me you won’t do anything rash,” Sam mutters, his expression unreadable. “Chris… I don’t want you rushing out and getting a cat without first thinking about everything it entails first.”

Too listless to fire up at what part of me sees as Sam sticking his nose in and having an adamant opinion on something that has nothing to do with him, I shrug. “Fine. I’ll think about it some more first.”

“Good.” Looking far more relieved at what he may well see as my capitulation than I feel it warrants, Sam smiles and finishes his coffee. “How are you feeling?”

“Like I look, I suspect,” I reply. “I feel like I’ve either been hit by something big or landed with a thud, and I’m definitely still both dithery and vague feeling, but… I’m okay. So long as I keep up the pills, the water and the rest, I’ll be fine.”

“Of course you will,” Sam responds as, seemingly trying to make his mind up about something, he looks at me closely. “What about now, do you feel as though you want to go back to bed?”

“I’m okay,” I repeat, gesturing at my blanket before picking up the water bottle and toasting him with it. “I’m warm, comfortable, and have water. This, I feel, is about as good as it’s going to get for me at the moment.”

“So you’d be up for going through what happened then?” Sam queries a tad reluctantly as he continues watching me intently. “I’ve read the statement you gave Parker at the hospital but I’d just like to hear it direct from you. Uh… But only if you’re feeling up to it, of course.”

“As there’s really not much to tell, I’m up for it,” I reply with a nod. “In fact, when I’m finished you can probably fill the gaps I’ve got in for me and between us we’ll have a complete story.”

“I’ll certainly do my best,” Sam replies, leaning forward and picking up a notepad and pen from the coffee table that I hadn’t even noticed were sitting there. “Now, in your own time and your own words…”

There not really being that much to tell him – got in lift in hospital, woke up in pitch black room, stayed there for what I now know was close to four days, had occasional conversation, if you could call it that, with Westbury, got rescued – it doesn’t take long to bring Sam up to speed with my side of things and when I’ve finished I flash him a grim smile. “And that’s all there really is to tell. He kept raving on about how I’d wronged a child and that was why I had to die, but… Hell, Sam, what child? I’m assuming I come to his attention in the hospital and that, I don’t know, it was just a case of wrong place at the wrong time, but I honestly can’t remember seeing a child, let alone doing something that could be perceived as… nasty. I… That more than anything, the not knowing what it is I did to piss him off, bugs me. I… I just don’t get it.”

“We’re thinking, going on the timing of your abduction and from what we were able to piece together from talking to the staff, that the… child… has to be Smith,” Sam responds, closing his notebook and returning it to the coffee table. “Joshua Smith, or as both Backup and quite a few of the nurses refer to him, ‘that feral little chav’. You had a run in with him in the waiting area just before you disappeared and it’s true that he does look a lot younger, a hell of a lot younger even, than his age. In fact, even I was prepared to accept that he was twelve or thirteen before I saw his birth certificate and had it confirmed that he was actually eighteen. An incredibly young looking eighteen, but eighteen nonetheless.” 

“Shit,” I swear, sitting up a little straighter as I mentally berate myself for not having considered Smith being the ‘child’ I’d dared to wrong earlier. “You know something, you’re probably right. That asshole could pass for a child and it was after I’d given Mavis’ bag to her that everything went black. Just… Shit!” Okay. Now I’m really pissed off. It was one thing wondering about the child I’d allegedly offended. Knowing, however, that the only reason I fell foul of Westbury was because I roughed up some lowlife who’d stolen the handbag of an old woman suffering from Alzheimer’s… Well, that’s just so fucking wrong it’s almost laughable.

“It’s the only scenario we’ve been able to come up with, given what we now know,” Sam continues, shooting me a worried look. “He saw you corner someone who he thought was a child and that was enough for him to want revenge.”

“I’d do it again, you know,” I mutter, meeting Sam’s gaze and rolling my eyes. “That Smith character is an absolute prick and I’m not sorry I got the bag off him. As for Westbury, I know this is pretty much a given, but he’s got fucking rocks in his head. Even if he does firmly believe he’s some sort of crusader for children and that Smith is only twelve or whatever, surely he’d been around the hospital long enough to know that he was constantly up to no good, that he was nowhere near as innocent as he perhaps looked.”

Wearily shrugging to indicate his agreement with everything I’ve just said, Sam nods and smiles grimly. “I was thinking about that too and I’ve come to the conclusion that the reason he so quickly, instantly even, singled you out for attention is because of your previous meeting in the cemetery. You’d done him a kindness, possibly even improved his opinion of the human race in general, and yet there you were manhandling what he believed to be a child. I suspect, as far as he was concerned anyway, that just made you the lowest of the low and he felt he had to act immediately.”

“Makes sense,” I sigh, marvelling – not for the first time – at the power of chance meetings and coincidences. “So much for the kindness of strangers, huh? Two good deeds and, for my troubles, I get to spend three days locked in a dark room. Some people just get all the luck.”

“Given that he’s seen you twice now after… uh… having been rescued from unfortunate circumstances, that’s what Andrew said yesterday too,” Sam responds with a dry, rather forced sounding laugh. “He even had to ask whether you’re always this unlucky or whether this has just been a particularly bad year for you.”

“I hope you told him this year is about par for the course,” I respond flatly, my at times seemingly never ending run of misfortune not really being something I want reminding of. “How’d Westbury get me out of the hospital without anyone seeing or without it being caught on camera?” I query, none too subtly getting the conversation back on track.

“All the cameras in that wing of the hospital and the underground parking lot just happened to be offline at the time,” Sam replies. “If the timeline we’ve pieced together is correct we think Westbury, after seeing you and Smith in the waiting area, quickly made his way to the, unmanned at the time, of course, security office and turned the cameras off before returning to the floor and following you into the lift. As for why no one noticed? Well, he is a doctor and he probably just looked as though he was helping one of his patients.” Pausing, Sam grimaces. “We were so fixated on Smith as our suspect that…”

“If Westbury hadn’t returned the sim to my phone you never would have found me?” I offer quietly when it becomes clear Sam doesn’t know how to go on. “It’s okay. I know everyone would have been doing everything they could to find me. Not to mention, seeing how he’s been able to remain under the radar for so long, how good Westbury is at what he does for a hobby. I mean, you’d never have suspected him and, seriously, why would you have? If I’d been on the case I would have focussed on Smith as well.”

Sam, looking about as down as I feel, sighs. “Barking up the wrong tree had nothing on it.”

“How loud did you bark though?” I ask, hoping to hear a tale of the Agency coming down hard on Smith’s ass because, Sam’s obvious glumness only serving to worsen my own mood, I need a silver lining in my sky full of storm clouds.

“Oh… We barked incredibly loud,” Sam replies, his expression brightening ever so slightly at the memory. “You know the interrogation room in the basement that you were only last week bemoaning its lack of use? We dragged him down there and, not to put a too fine a point on it or anything, made absolute mincemeat out of him. He was sobbing and snuffling so much at one point that, given how young he looks, I actually felt a little… creeped out, like I really was working over a child.”

“Tell me about it.” I pull a face, my own memory of what took place in the waiting area echoing Sam’s unease.

“I got over it though and I swear that if he ever sees me, or even anyone who so much as looks like me, again he’ll probably wet himself.”

Looks like… Sam’s statement prompting a memory of my meeting Westbury in the cemetery, I groan and feign a – ‘God, I’m dumb’ – slap to my temple. “That night by his wife’s tombstone, when Westbury first saw me looked like he’d seen a ghost. He made light of it though and just said something about looking like someone he knew. Thinking about it now though, that someone was most likely Tim, his latest victim. Seeing me in the cemetery must have really messed with his head and he probably really did think he was looking at a ghost.”

“Hell…” Sam grabs his notebook and quickly jots down a few notes. “To Westbury you’re… his Achilles’ Heel or haunting him or something like that,” he muses. “First he thinks you look like the man he’d only recently murdered, then you do something kind for him before popping up again a few months later and seemingly attacking a child. Then, just to really get to him, you tell him a story of loss that’s worse than his own and, suddenly unsure of himself, he lets you go.”

“All this because I just happened to be in the cemetery that night,” I mutter, giving Sam the thumbs up sign with both hands. “Go me. My incredible luck strikes again.” 

“But you’re still here,” Sam replies blithely as he stands up and walks over to join me on the sofa. “I think I might just know how to cheer you up, too.”

“Mmm?” I’d tell Sam not to hold his breath but, not wanting to bring him down to my level, I shuffle closer and look at him expectantly.

“One of the nurses told me that when Mavis opened her bag to reacquaint herself with its treasures, she found a small surprise in the form of a fifty pound note,” Sam murmurs, draping his arm around my shoulders and giving me a brusque hug that I don’t particularly feel worthy of. “Now, so delighted was Mavis with this unexpected find that she immediately fed it all into the vending machine and bought chocolate bars for everyone. I believe there may even be a special bar carefully put aside for the, and I quote, ‘nice man’ who found her bag and gave it back to her.”

Although I hadn’t been expecting it, Sam’s right. The thought of Mavis shouting everyone chocolate bars with the money I slipped into her bag does make me a smile. A genuine smile at that, one that Sam seems only too happy to reply in kind with.

“Ah… A smile at last. That’s better.” Pulling me closer, Sam plants a kiss on my cheek. “Hang in there, Chris. Everything’s going to be okay, you’ll see.”

~*~ 

Boredom and the fact that I feel as though I owe it to Sam to drag my ass out of the bedroom occasionally more than any actual desire to do so sees me through the almost Herculean task of opening the door and stepping out of the room. Having adapted quickly to the ‘grandfather look’, I’m still wearing the robe he handed me yesterday – as in, literally, still. I even, despite Sam’s raised eyebrow, slept in it last night – and I tighten the tie around my waist as, almost to my relief, I notice that Sam isn’t sitting where I thought he would be at the dining table. The sound of movement coming from the kitchen tells me he’s in there though and I hesitate over walking the short distance to join him.

I want to see Sam, for him to see me, to see that I’m… trying. Trying to function, trying to drag myself out of the funk I’ve been in ever since I was rescued, trying to pull myself together and return to the sense of ‘normal’ that I’ve long taken for granted.

But… I’m not trying. Not really. I use my health and – doctor’s orders! – need for rest to stay in bed and since the conversation in the living room yesterday ended I’ve grunted more monosyllabic responses at Sam than I have actually coherent and meaningful words. I want to engage, to draw pleasure from the feeling I’m getting that Sam honestly wants to be here with me, that he’s not just hanging around and trying to do all the right things because it’s expected of him (or he’s afraid of Backup… whose calls I’m also avoiding), but sadly wanting and doing are two wildly different things. All I really do is sleep, regardless of whether it’s what I want to do or not. Sleeping is easy. The antibiotics seem to keep the nightmares at bay and when I’m asleep I not only don’t have to think but I’m also safe from making an even grumpier, more ungrateful and unpleasant-to-be-around fool out of myself to Sam.

Sighing, I stare at the dining table and note that there appears to be even more paper strewn across it than there was when I last saw it and that boxes containing files have replaced the boxes of Christmas ornaments on the chairs. Knowing that Sam would have put the ornaments somewhere safe, I don’t really pay too much attention to their disappearance and start to think that I should just wave the white flag of defeat in relation to ever getting the tree decorated and just return it to its box already so it’s out of the way. Having nothing else to do with my time and feeling somewhat pleased with myself for having found a goal, I turn around to face the tree and…

It clearly being the week for my legs wanting to give way beneath me, what I see makes me grab on to the back of a chair for support and tears well instantly in my eyes. While I was asleep – or, apples and oranges, hiding in the bedroom – Sam must have decorated the tree because it now looks like I remember it looking that Christmas at Laura’s. As beautiful as the antique baubles are by themselves, they need to be displayed en masse on a tree to really shine and the sight of them shimmering even in the dull afternoon light takes my breath away.

“I hope you don’t mind,” Sam announces from behind me with what sounds like an unfamiliar hint of trepidation in his voice. “I needed the space and, well, every time I looked up I couldn’t help but be struck by how bare the tree looked.”

“I… It…” Blinking back tears, I slowly turn around and dredge up a wan smile. “It’s lovely,” I whisper, “and, no… I don’t mind at all. In fact, thank you. I was just contemplating packing the tree away because I didn’t think I’d be able to get around to decorating it, then… then I saw that you’d already done it and…” Trailing off, I shrug and finish lamely, “Again, thank you. It looks beautiful.”

“I thought about asking if you wanted to help but…” Looking as though he’s struggling to find the right words to say, Sam places the cup and plate he’s carrying in his hands on the table. “In the end I decided not to because… uh… you still need your rest,” he adds, looking past me to the Christmas tree. 

“I’m just glad you did it,” I reply truthfully as I shuffle around the chair and take a seat. “Seriously, Sam, you’ve done me a huge favour as I honestly didn’t think I was going to be up for doing it myself.”

“Well, it is Christmas,” Sam responds, sliding the plate which I now see contains a sandwich towards me. “Here. You have this and I’ll go and make myself another one.”

“Thanks, but I’m not…”

“Eat,” Sam interrupts in a no nonsense tone that immediately puts paid to my protest. “You need to eat even if you don’t want to because you can’t keep taking all those antibiotics on an empty stomach.”

Knowing that he’s right, I sigh and take a bite of what turns out to be a ham and cheese sandwich. “Happy?”

“Ecstatic,” Sam retorts, watching me until I’ve swallowed my first mouthful before turning around and heading towards the kitchen. “Now, how about I quickly get myself a sandwich before coming back and sharing with you everything we’ve been able to find out about Mr Westbury?”

“Sounds good,” I reply, taking another bite not only because I know I pretty much have to but also because it tastes quite good and I’m suddenly aware that perhaps I was a little hungrier than I thought I was. “No need to hurry though, it’s not like I’m going anywhere.”

Focussed no doubt on getting back to me before I flake out and skulk back to the bedroom, Sam doesn’t reply and, all the time sneaking glances at the tree, I finish eating the sandwich in relatively contented silence. When he returns he places a cup of coffee and yet another bottle of water in front of me before sitting down in front of his laptop at the head of the table.

“Thanks.” Sliding my drinks along the glossy surface of the table, I shift to the chair closest to Sam. “So, you’ve been able to come up with everything anyone needs to know about Jonathon Westbury?”

“Just about,” Sam responds through a mouthful of his sandwich. “Just about everything, in fact, other than his current whereabouts and how we’re actually going to be able to pin anything on him.”

“Oh.” Everything other than the most important stuff then.

“While I know this isn’t particularly the best word to use, he’s… good… at what he does,” Sam states, glancing down at the laptop. “Now, do you want this with or without pictures? If you’re after visual stimulation I can do it but it’ll take me a moment or two to get it all set up.”

Knowing already what Westbury looks like, I shrug. “Without is fine.”

“Without it is then.” Closing the laptop screen, Sam finishes eating and washes the last bite of his sandwich down with a sip of tea. “Westbury having led an interesting life, I don’t want to go on about him all afternoon and will try to keep to what I think are the more relevant points. If you’ve got any questions or want me to elaborate on anything, just say.”

“Will do.” Positioning my chair so I can face Sam without having to sit on an angle, I fold my hands around my cup of coffee and wait for him to start. “Okay. Hit me with it.”

“Jonathon Nathaniel Westbury,” Sam begins in his best lecturer-like tone, “is forty-seven years old and was born in Canterbury, Kent. He is an Oxford educated doctor whose speciality is cardiology. In fact, he’s one of Britain’s most respected and premier cardiologists. His IQ is over one hundred and forty and this puts him in the generally accepted ‘genius’ bracket.”

“Yay,” I mutter, earning a scowl from Sam for interrupting him pointlessly. “An educated and personable psychopath. Fantastic.”

“You don’t know the half of it,” he continues after waiting a few seconds to see if I perhaps had anything more pertinent to add. “Westbury is… or was, but I’ll get to that… one of those men for whom life is a complete breeze. From a moneyed family, his childhood was one of luxury and privilege. Education was effortless for him and while he one sporting love was yachting, he was also a dab hand on the rugby field and could turn his considerable skills to tennis when the need arose. His school reports are unanimously glowing, his grades well above average and excellent and although we’ve used all the resources available to us to have just about everyone who’s ever met the man interviewed, not one person has had anything less than stellar to say about him. The man, he’s just… Well, he’s just perfect. Good looking, rich, charming and, quite literally, a life saver. A book could be written on all the cutting edge procedures he’s successfully performed when every other cardiologist consulted said they wouldn’t do it, that it was too risky. The number of people alive today thanks to him is just… awe inspiring.”

“And what about those that aren’t?” I prompt drily as, taking a sip of coffee, I hope Sam doesn’t have much more to add about the wonderful exploits of the man we now believe to be a serial killer. Knowing what he was just makes knowing what he become all that much worse.

“He met Louise Chesterfield, his future wife, on his twelfth birthday when her family moved in next door.” Clearly choosing to ignore my – sarcasm – question, Sam pushes on. “Childhood sweethearts, they were literally inseparable from the day they met. While not as driven as Jonathon, Louise had a kind heart and pursued a career in social work. Her expertise lay in getting abused children to open up to her and her files consisted largely of cases of extreme neglect and sexual abuse. They regularly put on, and paid for, large parties for these children and, like Jonathon, everyone we’ve interviewed loved Louise. Oh, and get this. Not content with their highly stressful jobs and extracurricular activities in trying to bring a smile to the faces of abused children, they also spent their annual vacation time volunteering for Médecins Sans Frontières in either parts of Africa or South Asia in order to do their bit in the fight against malnutrition.”

“Médecins… what now?” I query, feeling that I probably should know the answer but lacking the prerequisite energy and interest at the moment to work it out for myself.

On second thoughts though, given the look of what could be either disgust or dismay – it’s hard to tell – on Sam’s face as he stares at me, maybe I should have tried a little harder.

“Don’t you speak anything other than American?” Sam sighs.

“Not if I can help it.”

“Médecins Sans Frontières… Doctors Without Borders. A charity and volunteer organisation taking medicines and health workers to places that have none.”

“Oh.”

“They’re a very worthwhile cause.”

“They sound it.” I’m being obtuse. There’s no need for it, and I don’t even know why I’m doing it, but I am.

Sam gives me a strange look which changes to one of obvious worry that he quickly masks by pressing on with his tale. “Jonathon and Louise were by all accounts an exceptional couple. Kind, generous and loved by all. The only thing missing from their life, and this is from Louise’s mother who we contacted on the pretence of reinvestigating her murder, was a child of their own. They tried every method and subjected themselves to every medical examination imaginable from the time they married at twenty-four but despite all their results coming back clean, so to speak, Louise simply could not fall pregnant. Nor did IVF work for them. Then, after they’d given up and were looking into adopting, at the age of forty-three Louise suddenly found herself expecting. Needless to say they were both literally over the moon at this news and from the moment the pregnancy test came back positive their entire universe revolved around their unborn child. The baby was everything to…”

Knowing how this story ends, I sigh and put my hand up to stop Sam from continuing. “Her murder, where did it happen?”

“Miami,” Sam responds with an almost imperceptible nod to indicate his agreement that, yes, there really wasn’t any need to go into further detail about the Westbury’s precious pregnancy. “The ecstatic couple were there for Jonathon to attend, as the keynote speaker, a cardiology conference. Louise was close to eight months pregnant and although she didn’t usually accompany him when he travelled to conferences, she went this time because she’d just started maternity leave and didn’t want to be apart from her husband. Having heard good things about the Miami shops, they’d also planned to do some last minute shopping for the baby before returning to London to concentrate on finalising the nursery.”

“Westbury mentioned something about a drug addict holding up a store,” I murmur, the darkness of my mood increasing with everything I learn about Westbury’s life. Regardless of his reasons, there’s no excuse for murder and I could never find it in myself to absolve him of his crimes, but… I still feel sorry for him. I can’t help it. To have everything so horrifically taken from you. Well, I know how it feels.

“That’s right, it happened in a shopping mall.” Sam pauses and, shuffling through a pile of papers until he finds what he’s looking for, consults his notes. “One Enrico Jimenez, a low level scumbag who had somehow managed to both remain out of jail and make it to the grand old age of twenty-one despite a meth addiction, questionable IQ and a slew of convictions for car theft and burglary as long as your arm. He held up a candle store of all things looking for some easy cash to provide his next hit. Armed robbery wasn’t his style but the police had recently busted a few meth labs and, because supply was lower than usual, the price had gone up and he was desperate.”

I sigh and, feeling a headache forming, slowly rub my temples. “Don’t tell me, it went pear shaped.”

“That’s one way of looking at it,” Sam replies, straightening his papers before returning them to the table. “Instead of lucking a teenage casual behind the counter, Jimenez waved his gun and demanded money from the store’s owner who, having only just heard that the mall was putting his rent up, was in a bad enough mood as it was even before he found himself staring down the barrel of a gun. Jimenez and his gun pushed him over the edge though and instead of calmly handing over his takings from the till he hurdled the counter and gave chase. Jonesing bad for a fix and caught off guard by the attack, Jimenez started firing indiscriminately. Too wired to aim, most of his rounds flew harmlessly through the air. One bullet winged the shop owner, while two somehow managed to end up in Louise Westbury. Oblivious to the commotion, she’d just walked out of a toy shop specialising in high end teddy bears. Jonathon exited the store in front of her, but…”

“But she was the one who was hit...” Proving, I think once and for all, how incredibly unfair life can be.

“Yes…” Sam lowers his head and directs the rest of his response to the tabletop. “One bullet entered her left lung while the other it… it went in through her belly.”

Meaning, despite the advanced stage of her pregnancy, the foetus didn’t have a chance.

“He watched them die,” I whisper, feeling sick to the stomach. “The love of his life and their much longed for baby. It… It’s just…” Knowing that there’s no need to go on stating the obvious, I sigh again and drum my fingers on the table. “What happened to Jimenez?”

“Miami Dade’s finest descended on him from every angle of the mall but, and God knows how, he managed to always stay one step ahead,” Sam replies, lifting his head and, meeting my gaze, rolling his eyes. “That is until he ran into a no nonsense ex marine who had him flat on his back and under citizen’s arrest before the closest police officer could get his cuffs off his belt. He was then bundled off to lockup where, and the reports covering the incident are sketchy at best because to be honest with you I don’t think anyone really much cared, he came to a bloody end at the hands of another meth addict who didn’t take kindly to having to share his cell.”

“So… Westbury, he never really got closure, did he? No trial, no justice done…” Just because you might wish death on those who have wronged you doesn’t mean you want them to die instantly or without having first felt the full strength of the law.

“You could even say he felt let down by all aspects of the justice system. If not for the ex marine stepping in Jimenez could have well got the better of the police and got away. And his murder, that’s really a failing of system too. He was behind bars, protected. It happens, yes, but common sense tells you he shouldn’t have died that easily. In fact…” Sam looks over the dining table, his gaze lingering for a few seconds on each of the pile of papers scattered across it. “The report’s somewhere, I’m sure of it, but… Never mind. It’ll turn up at some point and you can read it for yourself then. It’s an interesting theory though, one that I think may well hold some weight.”

“And that theory… would be?”

“That one of the reasons Westbury goes out of his way to make all his murders entirely different is because he feels law enforcement is inept and he wants to get one over on them. They failed him in Miami and these failings clearly reach out across the world because no one, despite his leaving of random items on the body, has cottoned on to him.”

The theory, a work in progress that I suspect has come from the B. A. U., strikes me as viable. “His high IQ would probably come in handy for this… game… or whatever you want to call it, too,” I state, eschewing my now quite stone cold coffee for unscrewing the lid off the bottle of water and taking a drink.

“It’s doubtful that it would stand up in court and may well be entirely meaningless,” Sam responds, taking his glasses off and leaning back in his chair, “but his favourite television shows are those ones that focus around forensics. You know, those C.S.I. shows and the like. He also, thanks to his consulting work in most of London’s major hospital, can count a number of top pathologists amongst his friends. None of them say he was ever improper in his questions or level of interest but at the same time were all quite chuffed at how knowledgeable he always seemed and how he could usually keep up with their discussions.”

“In other words he was well educated in the specifics of his… uh… hobby,” I mutter. “Those shows, regardless of whether they gave him any ideas or not, they have a lot to answer for. I’ve caught a few episodes over the years and… seriously… the writers that come up with a lot of it have to be a sick and twisted bunch. But… Whatever. You’re right. You can hardly convict someone on their taste in television programs.”

“Actually…” Standing up, Sam walks over to the wall of glass overlooking the cemetery and chooses to look out through it in preference to witnessing my reaction to what he apparently doesn’t particularly want to tell me. “I hate to say this, Chris, but going on everything we’ve been able to come up with so far it’s doubtful we’ll be able to convict Westbury of anything. We’re sure he’s the one behind your abduction and all the deaths we’ve been able to link, but we have no proof. None. Not a single speck of evidence. We’ve confirmed there were medical conventions taking place either in or near the town at the time of their deaths, so we know he was in the vicinity, but…”

“A lot of the same attendees would be at those conferences,” I interject as, looking exhausted, Sam slowly turns around and leans his back against the glass. “Any lawyer worth their retainer would be able raise cause for doubt just by running through the list of names. Then there’s the absolute lack of evidence found at all the crime scenes that, some of which, let’s not forget, weren’t even considered crime scenes. We… It’s true. We have nothing other than our suspicions on him.”

“Nothing,” Sam confirms glumly. “The King wasn’t able to find any trace or fingerprints on your St Christopher medal and while I do not doubt for a second that Westbury placed it on his wife’s grave, they’d only have to mention that you live by the cemetery and frequently walk through it to raise the possibility of you having merely lost it there. It’s him, I know it is. Everything just adds up and makes a tragic amount of sense. Devastated and made a little crazy by his wife’s death, he seeks revenge on those he feels have wronged innocent children while at the same time sticking it up law enforcement and applying his considerable intelligence to committing the perfect crime every time. Just… I just don’t know how we’re ever going to prove it.”

“First locate him, I suppose,” I reply, feeling as though I should go over to Sam to show him that none of this is his fault, that I don’t blame him for being the bearer of bad news but, as I’m becoming sadly used to, lacking the energy to actually do anything about it. “You said something earlier about him having done a runner?”

“It’s like he’s disappeared into thin air,” Sam responds, rubbing his hands over his face as he rotates his shoulders in an attempt to alleviate some of the tension I know has to be in them. “We think he left you, came to the cemetery to place the flowers and medallion on his wife’s grace and that’s where the trail goes cold. He hasn’t been to work, kept any of his appointments, or been back to his home in Knightsbridge. Having friends in higher places than even Horvath, we’re not even sure he’s still in the country. Along with being a keen yachtsman he also has his pilot’s license and could have easily got access to either a boat or light aircraft and made it into Europe that way. We’ve got an all agency BOLO out, but for all we know he’d planned for this eventuality and is probably as good at hiding as he is at everything else.”

Sam looks down, and my dimly recalled sense of common decency says to me that I should say something reassuring like ‘have faith, we’ll get him’, or thank him for all the effort he’s gone to in order to pull all the information together. 

Do I do either of these things though? No. Too caught up in my inability to cope or pull myself together, I get up and walk towards the bedroom. “My head hurts,” I announce flatly. “I’m going to bed.” 

~*~

Having adapted alarmingly well to my newly embraced life of merely taking up space and both looking and feeling morose, I sit on the sofa and aimlessly indulge in my current favourite method of time wastage – running through a never ending selection of the ‘what ifs’. It’s pointless, frustrating as all hell – especially seeing as I’m stuck in a loop that I keep doing to death – and not doing me any good whatsoever. I know all this, sometimes I even spare a thought or two to the fact I’m only wasting my time (and achieving fuck all while I’m at it), yet still I keep returning to the ‘what ifs’. It’s a vicious cycle. Instead of concentrating on pulling myself together and giving Sam a reason not to throw his hands in the air in disgust and just leave me to it, I let my imagination run riot on all the ways things could have turned out differently if…

… I hadn’t seen that drunk throw up all over Louise Westbury’s tombstone or, alternatively, if I’d simply turned a blind eye to it and hadn’t decided my good deed for the day would be to clean it up.

… I hadn’t discovered that Mavis had ‘lost’ her bag… or even known that she existed… or intervened with prejudice in relation to getting it back for her.

… Westbury hadn’t been passing by while I was actually in the process of… intervening with prejudice.

… Joshua Smith actually looked his Goddamn age.

… I hadn’t thrown the wedding in Westbury’s face in that sickening game of ‘my suffering is worse than yours’ one-upmanship.

… Louise Westbury hadn’t accompanied her husband to Miami for the conference.

… The Miami-Dade Police Department hadn’t been so proactive in their pursuit of meth labs and Enrico Jimenez hadn’t been in such desperate need for the extra cash needed for his usual score that the idea of holding up a candle store wrongly struck him as a good one.

… Louise had stayed in bed that day or chosen to go to a different shopping mall.

… (Game over – before it even started – time, this one) Jimenez’s bullet had hit Jonathon Westbury instead of his wife.

What’s… fantastic… about the ‘what ifs’ is that, if you’re deluded enough or really are incapable of finding anything more productive to do with your time, you can stretch it back to the dawn of time. It literally can keep you occupied – if not exactly entertained – for all your waking hours.

What if…

… The Navy had accepted Blesdale’s son’s application… or he’d simply chosen to be a teacher or a mechanic.

… My sister and her fiancé hadn’t decided to get married on Naval grounds.

These two ‘what ifs’ lead into an entirely different world. If the wedding had gone ahead as planned my family would still be alive and I probably wouldn’t have moved to London… which means I wouldn’t have met Sam… and… if I hadn’t met Sam I wouldn’t have had cause to meet Phil and wouldn’t have ended up being held captive (story of my life?) and high on ketamine… and…

And on and on and on it goes.

And, as the dear old great aunt who-wasn’t-mentioned-in-polite-society (but who was much adored by all the nieces and nephews) used to say, if auntie had balls she’d be uncle. 

It doesn’t achieve anything, could well be described as the very definition of futility, but it’s… compelling. Very, very compelling and, when in a rut like I am, very, very difficult to break free from. Sam’s loaded all the information on the case – which somehow, no doubt thanks to my inadvertent involvement, the Agency has decided to take a ‘special’ interest in – onto my iPad yet apathy continues to trump curiosity and I haven’t so much as contemplated picking it up since he placed it on the coffee table. I sleep, get up when my bladder requires me to, mooch around from sofa to chair to staring blankly out into the cemetery, eat whatever Sam puts in front of me, find excuses not to return Backup’s (and Spencer’s, and the King’s and Eddie’s) calls and dwell relentlessly on the ‘what ifs’. It’s all pointless and pathetic but there you go.

Hearing Sam walk into the living room, I reluctantly turn my head to face the door and notice with a degree of interest that actually surprises me that he’s wearing his coat and holding his keys in his hand. “Finally had enough, huh?” I query, gesturing at the keys and offering up what I hope resembles an understanding smile. “To be honest I’m impressed you stuck it out for as long as you did.”

“I’ll be back,” Sam retorts, glowering at me as he makes no attempt to hide his exasperation at my zombie-like behaviour. “I take it you didn’t listen to a word I said this morning? I wish I’d known I was boring you as I would have stopped wasting my breath.”

Bullseye. I’ve finally managed to get through the weird façade of calm Sam’s been wearing ever since he brought me inside after finding me in the cemetery. Not, it has to be said, that this is exactly a cause for pride. In fact it only succeeds in making me feel worse.

“At the risk of further adding to your boredom, I suppose then I’ll have to repeat myself” Sam continues, narrowing his eyes as, in terms of unimpressed facial expressions, he really lets me have it.

“Uh…” Lowering my head to studiously feign fascination with my knees, I don’t continue as, basically, there’s not a damn thing I can think of saying that could possibly improve the moment.

Sighing loudly and tellingly, Sam folds his arms across his chest and stares at me until I – give in – slowly lift my head and look up at him. “Do you know what day it is tomorrow?” 

“No.”

“It’s Christmas Day.”

“Oh.” It is? Crap. How’d that happen?

Oh yeah. That’s right. Pneumonia, hospital, Westbury and an attack of the miseries. That’ll do it for time getting away from you every time.

“Oh? Is that really all you’ve got to say on the matter?” Sam prompts, strangely enough now almost looking as though he wants to laugh. “I know you were able to gloss over it when I told you earlier, but I’m a little more convinced you’re actually at least trying to listen this time and… your reaction, it disappoints me.”

“Crap?” I offer, swinging my legs off the sofa and sitting up as the magnitude of today’s date begins to really hit home. “Actually… Crap, crap, crap! Is that better?”

Sam smirks. “Much.”

“But, it… It can’t be Christmas tomorrow. I’m not ready.” Understatement. If I’d thought about it at all – which clearly I didn’t – I would have sworn Christmas was still at least a week away. Tomorrow though? Fuck. I don’t have any presents for anyone and while the idea of spending the holiday with Sam appeals (despite the effort I’ve been putting into indicating otherwise), I doubt the same would be able to be said for his feelings towards having to spend it with me, the pale and pasty grey hole of despair. “It… Come on, admit it. You’re pulling my leg.”

“Trust me, I’m not,” Sam replies with an easy smile. “Tomorrow really is Christmas Day, regardless of whether you’re ready for it or not.”

“Then… postpone it,” I mutter, my mind threatening to hold a stop work meeting and simply shutting down as all the ways I’m not ready for it to be Christmas yet try to flood in all at once. “Stop smirking! It’s not funny. I… I’m just not ready.”

“Given your whereabouts and general health for the past week and a half, I’m sure your complete lack of organization skills will be forgiven,” Sam responds as he slips his car keys into the pocket of his coat and walks across the room to take a seat next to me on the sofa. “Cheer up. I’ve done most of it for you anyway.”

“You… have?” I query, hesitant over getting my hopes up yet at the same time, knowing Sam as I do, instinctively believing that somehow he probably has. 

His smirk intensifying, Sam looks at me from under arched brows. “Surely you don’t doubt my claim?”

“No… Yes, maybe… Oh God, I don’t know!” I groan and rub the side of my face with my hand. “How… If I play along and accept your claim, how have you managed to organise everything? You’ve been stuck here with me.”

“I wouldn’t say… stuck,” Sam responds, “yet nor would I want to be complimenting you on your current observation skills. Between emails, phone calls, text messages and a band of kind helpers willing to brave both the elements and the shops, of course I’ve been able to get most things done.”

“But…” One thing’s for sure, my ability to take up residence in my own head and pretty much ignore everything that’s going on around me is top notch. So caught up in myself in fact that Sam could have bought a one night stand home and I probably wouldn’t have even noticed. “I don’t have anything for you,” I mumble dejectedly. There’s more to Christmas than presents, I know that, but I like giving gifts and have always enjoyed putting the extra effort into shopping around for what I’m confident the intended recipient would like. So, to have missed this opportunity coupled with knowing I have nothing to give anyone just… grates. 

“Don’t worry about,” Sam replies with a shrug as he chooses to address the coffee table. “I don’t have anything for you either.”

“Oh…” So much for being organised, then.

“Well, that is… I do. Sort of. It’s all arranged and everything, but… it’s just not ready yet.”

Silly me. Of course Sam’s organised. He just can’t help it if a third party is failing him. “Oh?”

“Mmm… You’ll see. Uh… Eventually.” A faint pink tinge colouring Sam’s cheeks, he continues directing his responses to the coffee table in preference to actually looking at me. “With any luck it should be ready early January.”

Curiouser and curiouser. “Want to give me a hint?”

“No. I don’t.”

“Not even a little one?”

“Not even a little one.”

“Spoilsport.”

“Uh-huh. That’s me all over.”

Accepting that this line of questioning isn’t going to get me anyway, I huff and fold my arms across my chest. “Fine. Be like that.”

“Thank you. I will.” Looking slightly relieved that I’m letting the topic of his… surprise… drop, Sam looks at me and beams smugly. “Now that that’s out of the way, do you want to hear about my more successful, timing wise, that is, endeavours?”

“Mmm… Go for it.”

“You’ll actually listen this time?”

“Yes, yes. You have my word.” Deservedly though it may be, I get the feeling I’m never going to live my inattentiveness down.

“Actually, Spencer did most of the hard slog. I just issued forth with the requests,” Sam replies, his expression such that I get the clear impression he didn’t like having to ask but wasn’t comfortable leaving me to my own limited devices in order to do it himself. “A Thorntons hamper went into the office for everyone to share while a nice bottle of Australian red made its way direct to Horvath. Suspecting you’d be wanting to continue your… befriending… of Eddie, and I think I’ll let Spencer tell you himself just how much you owe him for this particular favour, he received a gift voucher from his favourite… alternative… music store in Camden.”

“How… alternative… is alternative?” I ask, the look of disdain on Sam’s face as he mentioned it making me curious.

“Ask Spencer, that’s all I’m saying,” Sam replies, laughing. “It’ll sound better coming from him anyway.”

“Oh-huh… Okay.” Now I’m really curious. Perhaps even more so than I am in respect to whatever it is Sam’s got me for Christmas that isn’t ready yet. “Thanks for all that though. If I hadn’t… Uh… If I’d been up to it it’s exactly what I would have done.”

“You don’t say?” Sam murmurs facetiously as he gives me a gentle dig in the ribs with his elbow. “Now, tomorrow we’re going to Backup and Spencer’s for Christmas lunch. I tried to impress on her that you mightn’t be up for it but she wouldn’t take no for an answer.”

‘Mightn’t be up for it’? Code, perhaps, for ‘seriously, he’s a depressive bore at the moment who’ll probably bring the entire mood of the day down’? Hell, I know it’s what I would have said if I’d been asked. “Oh…”

“Don’t worry about presents. They’re sorted,” Sam interrupts, somehow having read my mind. “Not knowing the first thing about children, I just gave Backup the money to buy something for them that she’ll put our names on. Spencer apparently wants some Star Trek DVD boxset that Backup’s given me the name of, and he in turn has given me the name of her favourite perfume. These I’m going to pick up while I’m out, so you don’t need to worry about arriving on the doorstep empty handed.”

“Sounds good,” I reply as, glancing down at what I’m wearing, I sigh when I realise I’m still slobbing around in my pyjamas and dressing down. “I’ll just go get you some money.”

Placing his hand firmly on my knee, Sam stops me from getting up and shakes his head. “I’m good,” he murmurs, standing up himself and retrieving his keys from his pocket. “I’d also better get a move on if I’m to have any chance of finding a park.” Pausing he looks down at me and frowns. “The King and David asked us around for Christmas Eve drinks but feeling that you probably need to conserve your energy for tomorrow I declined and said we’d try to call around on Boxing Day. If I’ve spoken out of turn though, just…”

“No. What you said is completely right,” I interject, my mind barely coming to grips with having to be out and about and functioning tomorrow as it is. If it had been expected of me tonight though… Shit. I don’t even want to contemplate it. Tomorrow – and for Christmas lunch, of all things – is bad enough. “Boxing Day though, definitely. They’ll probably appreciate hearing all the latest from you personally.”

“Mmm…” Walking over to me, Sam crouches down and closes his hand warmly around mine. “I meant what I said earlier about cheering up, Chris,” he comments in a firm tone as, desperately wanting to live up to the quiet faith I can see in his eyes, I force myself to meet his gaze. “Christmas, albeit perhaps not entirely how you would have liked it, is sorted, we’re on to Westbury now and I’m confident we’ll find him, you’re safe, and…” Sighing, Sam takes a deep breath and places his free hand on my knee. “This may be a case of too little, too late, but I… I realised something while you were missing, something that I should have realised earlier…”

“And that’s that your life is far better off having me in it?” I joke, some stupid knee-jerk reaction making me want to make light of the moment for no discernible reason. “Just… Look at me. You’d be a fool to not want…” I pull my hand away from Sam’s and, pulling a face, gesture at my dressing gown. “… this lighting up your existence.”

Grabbing my hand, Sam squeezes it tightly and shifts onto the sofa. “I would be… and I have been,” he states very much matter-of-factly. “As seems to be my unfortunate habit, I’ve reverted to form these past few months and treated you badly, giving you the cold shoulder whenever I’ve…” He shrugs. “Well, whenever I’ve had one of my non-communicative meltdowns, as I suspect you’d refer to them. And… Not only am I sorry but I’m telling you now that they’re a thing of the past. I thought my world was in danger of coming to an end when you disappeared and I realised then how incredibly important you are to me and how… lucky… I am to have been given this second chance. Chris, I… I just want you to know that, better late than never, I’m here for you and I’m not going anywhere.”

Touched, close to the point of tears even, by Sam’s declaration, I squeeze his hand back as the first genuine smile I’ve had in a week stretches across my lips. “I always knew you’d prove to be worth the effort,” I murmur, my smile broadening as he leans forward and kisses my cheek. “Now, go. I know you just said you weren’t going anywhere, but… the shops and their throngs of frantic festive shoppers beckons, do they not?”

“Mmm…” Sam nods and, most likely relieved that I’ve calmly taken his statement on board without making a fuss and wanting to get away before I change my mind, leaps to his feet. “Anything you want while I’m out?”

“Nah. I’m good,” I reply, making shooing gestures towards the door as I start to plot what I’m going to do with myself in Sam’s absence. “Just go. I’ll see you when you get back.”

Looking as though he wants to say something, Sam peers at me for a moment before shrugging his acceptance and heading for the door. “If you think of anything you want just give me a call.”

“Uh-huh. Will do.”

“Mmm… See you later then.”

“See ya.” 

I wait until the sound of the front door being pulled shut reaches my ears before standing up, stretching the far too numerous kinks out of my body, and heading for the bedroom. While it would be too hug-a-hippy or melodramatic to say I suddenly feel alive, I certainly feel far more… with it… than I did sitting feeling sorry for myself on the sofa before Sam arrived and want to make the most of it. Christmas Day being tomorrow (proving time really does fly when you’re in a funk) and Sam quietly letting it be known that, God forbid, stop the presses, he’s actually accepted that, well, perhaps, just maybe he does care for me after all – they’re both like the wake-up call I didn’t even know I was waiting for. The ‘what ifs’ and the sorrow I feel for Westbury – while simultaneously struggling to accept the path his grief took him down – are still there, but they’ve now taken the backseat to waking up to myself and finally discovering the spark of life I needed to pull myself together.

Not wanting to dwell too much on Christmas having very nearly passed me by – Sam organising everything and telling me not to worry about presents, that they’re sorted, is one thing, and I’m grateful to him, but… It’s not right and I’m going to have to rectify it somehow – for the moment, I grab some clean clothes and walk into the en suite. Stripping off for the first time since Sam helped me shower three days ago, I throw my pyjamas and robe into the clothes hamper and step into the shower. Once I’ve thoroughly washed myself, I shave, clean my teeth, get dressed and, feeling far more human than I have in days, return to the bedroom. Sam’s obsessive neat streak stretching to wherever he finds himself staying, the room has a foreign, showroom like quality to it that has me shaking my head in bemusement as I sit down on the edge of the bed to consider my options.

Knowing that I have to be sensible and that embracing my new-found lease of life by deluding myself I was one hundred percent back to normal would be plain foolish, I reluctantly admit that I don’t yet have it in me to venture out of the house on my own. Particularly not in terms of getting behind the wheel and, complete with general light headedness and lingering fatigue, trying my luck in Christmas traffic before – assuming I even made it there in one piece, that is – braving a no doubt hectic shopping centre in search of gifts I haven’t even put any thought into. It just… wouldn’t be pretty. That said, I loathe the idea of not having any presents to give. Especially to James and Charlotte (because Christmas is always far more magical to young children). Backup and Spencer are okay for the time being though because not only has Sam got their gifts in hand but also because I know I can get them something at any time, that the day they receive them won’t matter.

Sam though… I’d like to have something to give to Sam. Regardless of his assertions that my present is going to be late, it’s suddenly important -- incredibly so, and no doubt more so because of the lack of options currently open to me – that I have something for him. It’s our first Christmas back together, the past six months have been far from plain sailing and I want him to know how special he is to me. Thinking back, I’d been planning on buying him a watch and while I know I could wait and still get one to give him when he gives me my present, I… don’t want to and start to wrack my brain in respect to whether there’s anything already in the apartment I could give him. I have a lot of watches, having inherited both my father’s and grandfather’s collections, and given that a number of them live in the safe it’s unlikely that Sam would have ever seen them before. Which means, I suppose, at a push, I could pass one off as simply being a watch I picked up in an antique store...

Not entirely happy with this idea – not because I’d begrudge Sam a watch I probably neither remember having worn or even recall I have, but because it smacks of tackiness – but nonetheless desperate enough to grant it further investigation, I go into the study and unlock the safe. As I’m pulling the tray of watches out a small box, quite plain, slips out and falls to the floor by my feet. Picking it up, the proverbial penny drops and I’m grinning as, without even having looked them over, I return the watches to the safe and lock it back up.

Carrying the box over to the desk, I sit down and open the lid. Gold cuff links, understated in their elegance and almost as plain as the box containing them, gleam up at me and, all the time mentally patting myself on the back for having so effortlessly saved the day, I reverently run my finger along them. Fabergé, and having once belonged to the… companion… of a flamboyant great-uncle who died before I was born and who I very rarely heard mention of until I was in my late teens, the cuff links are perfect for Sam. Worth a ridiculous amount yet not something I’ll ever wear and simply going to waste locked in a safe, I’d wanted to give them to him during the latter part of the five years we first spent together but the timing just never proved to be right. For no particular reason I’d always wanted them to be a Christmas, not birthday or ‘just because’, gift and it simply never eventuated. Work always seemed to have the unfortunate habit of getting in the way of Christmas and we never managed to get to spend it at home in London. Instead of getting to unwrap presents together before sitting down for a traditional lunch – most likely in a pub, but still – we’d spend it in some shit hole somewhere exchanging gifts of whatever alcohol we’d managed to get our hands on and indulging in passionate, somewhat frantic sex.

Which, of course, while perhaps not particularly Christmassy, wasn’t without merit.

Hell… Is it suddenly hot in here or is it just me?

My memories serving to warm me up even more effectively than the central heating, I leave the study and, not knowing the first place to look for wrapping paper, even assuming I have any in the house, slip the cuff links into the top drawer of my bedside table. They are what they and the sentiment behind them won’t change if they’re disguised by shiny paper or not, so… He can just have them ‘as is’.

Ignoring the butterflies in my stomach when I think of what Sam’s reaction to them may be, I walk back out of the bedroom and come to an aimless stop in front of the tree. Staring at it though, my ‘now, what am I doing with myself again?’ moment suddenly becomes far less aimless as I’m hit by the brainwave to give one of the glass ornaments to both James and Charlotte. While not a – preferable, I’m sure of it – toy or even anything they can use, Backup can look after the ornament for them before giving it to them for their own tree when they move out. Almost as pleased with myself for this idea as I am with having come across the cuff links, I choose a red and purple one for Charlotte and a silver and blue one for James and, carefully taking them off the tree, lay them on the sideboard. 

Needing something both classy and sturdy to put each of the ornaments in and knowing that I wouldn’t have anything to meet the criteria in the apartment, I find my – still covered in the powder forensics use to check for prints – mobile on the kitchen bench and decide to send Sam a message asking him to pick up something suitable for me. I could just phone, but the mental images I’m getting of the mood Sam is most likely in as he’s being swallowed up by a throng of anxious shoppers waving rolls of paper and frozen turkeys around, well… Just call me a wimp, I don’t want to be on the receiving end of his diatribe of abuse when he finds he probably needs to go back to a store he’s only just left. So, a text it is. I’ll listen and nod sympathetically when he returns, but for now I’m just in too good of a mood to want to hear Sam bitch.

Message sent, and incredibly curt reply of ‘Fine’ received, I turn my attention to thinking what else I can do to show to Sam how much better I am and settle on arranging to have a nice dinner waiting for him. For most people this would probably mean consulting their array of cookbooks or the internet for the perfect meal before trotting eagerly into their perfectly appointed kitchen and retrieving everything they required from their always stocked to perfection refrigerator and cupboards. I, however, do not fall into the category of ‘most people’ and merely reach once more for my phone. A quick call to Giuseppe sees the instant arrangement of a – perfect - three course meal to be delivered to my front door and for the first time in what feels like ages I find myself actually looking forward to eating.

Dinner organised, I find a bottle of red in the kitchen that I open to allow to ‘breathe’ before slowly packing away all of Sam’s portable office and tidying the dining table. As I suspect he won’t have finished with it and that it will need to be put back before too long, I only place the laptops, files, paper and other miscellaneous pieces of equipment on the unused chairs and hide them under the table. I then, complete with truly unimaginative candles, set it ready for the arrival of dinner – and Sam, hopefully around the same time – before making myself a cup of coffee and settling down with the iPad to catch up on the news sites. Although I could use the time to thoroughly familiarise myself with the case, I decide reading up on world events is preferable because it should give me something other than Westbury’s exploits to talk to Sam about. It’s Christmas Eve, I’m only just beginning to feel as though I’ve woken up after a long sleep, and I’d honestly just rather talk about the weather and how Heathrow’s struggling in the snow than I would about our… pet… serial killer. I could be wrong, but I think Sam probably would too. To have an actual conversation, regardless of how inane the topic may be, would surely have to be an improvement on either feeling as though he had to regale me with information or simply being grunted at. 

The world’s news not really having changed that much since I last paid attention to it, I doze off after a while and only wake when I hear the front door opening. 

“I thought I was being clever stopping in at Giuseppe’s to pick up dinner,” Sam calls out as he makes his way up the stairs. “Little did I know though that all I’d be doing was literally… picking it up,” he continues, walking past me as he heads into the kitchen to place the plastic bags containing the food onto the bench. “Great idea, though. I’ll just go and get everything else from the car and then we can…” Noticing me (the clean, shaven and dressed me) for the first time, he falls silent and smiles. “Hey… You look better.”

“Feel it, too,” I reply, walking over to join Sam by the bench and immediately wrapping my arms around him for a hug that, gratifyingly, he returns without hesitation. “Here’s to the first of many Christmases we’ll spend together.”

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

An incessant, annoying and far from wanted ringing sound interrupting my peaceful doze, I half lift my head from the pillow and issue forth with what can best be described as a noise of – sorts – of complaint. “Don’t answer it.”

“It’s Horvath,” Sam replies as – ever dutiful – he sits up and retrieves his mobile from the bedside table.

“You’ve assigned him a ring tone?” Small things obviously amusing small minds, I’m impressed.

“You haven’t?” Sam responds with a smirk as he stands up and stretches before answering the call. “Sir.”

Yawning, I reluctantly wave farewell to the pleasant calm of the past few days and half listen to Sam’s side of his conversation with our commander. 

“Yes. It was lovely. You?”

“He’s here. Would you like to speak to him?”

“Oh… Uh-huh…”

Whatever it is that Horvath’s telling Sam causes him to frown and, slowly shaking his head, he walks out of the bedroom.

Curious, but not enough to drag my butt out of bed quite just yet, I stretch, yawn again and let my head drop back down on the pillow. The date and time on the clock radio reads just past ten in the morning on the twenty-seventh of December and, knowing that Horvath’s call won’t simply be a social one, I accept with no real disappointment that our festive break has now come to an end. Sure, it would be nice and I certainly wouldn’t complain if it were able to continue a little longer, but life simply must go on. Besides, better the wonderful time we’ve been lucky enough to enjoy since Christmas Eve be broken by work than a petty argument borne just from having spent too much time in each other’s company. I’m not saying I think Sam’s merely biding his time before – reverting to form – feeling the urge to have one of his ‘moments’ and departing as quick as his legs can carry him or even that I’m at risk of becoming a little twitchy as a result of having successfully played ‘house’ for so long, more that it’s just one of those human nature sort of things. My parents hardly ever argued, at least not in front of a young and impressionable audience, but Christmas was all but guaranteed to set them off at one point or another. The desire to make everything perfect, so much time spent surrounded by company, some small insignificant comment causing tempers to finally fray and all hell to break loose… It really is just one of those unavoidable facts of life. Christmas – a time for goodwill to all, high stress and, eventually, tetchy people on a short fuse.

So, yes, better work come along to save us from ourselves than an argument over whether left over Christmas pudding goes well with cold pizza or not ruins not only our current happy sense of togetherness but also all the good memories of what, admittedly against the odds, has turned out to be an excellent Christmas. 

Sam, after the inevitable refusal – heartfelt and plaintive it was too, but the threat that I’d just give them to Horvath for his birthday if he didn’t want them did the trick– accepted the cuff links and even wore them to Backup’s for lunch. Whether he spent the day constantly, not overly surreptitiously, mind you, admiring them was because he was truly touched and couldn’t believe his good fortune, or whether he was paranoid about wearing something worth so much and was terrified of losing one, however, is a question I’m a little wary of asking him. Backup and Spencer seemed genuinely pleased with the baubles and, having been expecting it, the lack of interest shown by James (it wasn’t, after all a Transformer) and Charlotte (too young and more entranced by the discarded wrapping paper than any of her presents) didn’t disappoint. The food was tasty and plentiful, Backup’s lecture over not calling her from the hospital and then avoiding her calls wasn’t too onerous, I surprised Sam once or twice with my very trivial knowledge in the game of Trivial Pursuit we somehow found ourselves playing during the afternoon, Sam kept his smugness at having won the game to a tolerable minimum, Spencer controlled – albeit barely – the urge to try to share in his delight in the Star Trek box set by making us watching some of it, and… It was just a good day. A really, really good day that, in my opinion anyway, easily makes up for all the failed Christmases during Round One of our relationship.

Yesterday was also pretty good. Leisurely sleep in, other activities some might argue best done in bed leisurely indulged in, leisurely lunch before, solely in the name of research, of course, leisurely investigating whether the sofa is a good substitute for the bed… 

Spending the evening with the King and David was quite good too. The constant comments over how well – ‘positively glowing!’ – I looked started to wear a little thin though, especially as every time I opened my mouth to set them straight as to why (well, why not? I’ve discovered nothing shuts teasing up faster than the blunt truth) Sam would dig his elbow in my ribs and loudly change the subject. Still, I’ve managed to find it in my heart to forgive him and it was good to see them both – and their cranky cats – again.

Feeling myself sliding off back to sleep, I decide the time has come to get moving and, throwing the duvet off, climb out of bed. Grabbing my new robe – a Christmas gift from Sam because I suspect he never wants to see the one I wore constantly for three days in a row ever again – from the floor, I pull it on, retrieve Sam’s from the chair and walk out of the room. The dining table having already been restored to it’s home office status, I find Sam leaning over his laptop while still talking to Horvath. Noticing me, he glances up and nods. His expression is unreadable though and I don’t know what to make of it. Bad news? Horrible news? Totally indifferent news? Boring news?

Mouthing “coffee”, I place his robe next to the laptop on the dining table and make my way into the kitchen. The coffee has just finished pouring into the cups when Sam, his robe on and the phone still held up to his ear, walks into the kitchen.

“Of course, yes. I understand and we’ll see you when you get there.”

Ending the call, Sam runs his fingers through his hair and sighs before taking the cup of coffee I’m offering him with a nod of thanks. “Westbury’s surfaced,” he announces, taking what looks to be a very much needed mouthful of coffee.

“Oh.” Strangely, I don’t quite know where this falls on my news scale – bad, indifferent… good? “Where?”

“Miami.”

“Back where it all started.”

“Seems that way,” Sam replies, indicating that I should follow him back to the dining table. “Seems too that he may have chosen to go out with something of a bang.”

“Another murder?” I query, unable to stop the thought of, if all had gone to his plan, he would have had my St Christopher medal in hand to place on his next victim, as I carry my coffee into the room after Sam.

“Murders.” Taking a seat in front of the laptop, Sam opens up his emails and brings up a flight confirmation. “Three so far, if those… uh… in the know… are correct. No forensics, of course, but they’ve all had their throats slit and, even more tellingly, they’ve all been paedophiles listed on the sex offender registry.”

Pulling a chair up next to Sam’s, I sit down and take a small sip of the coffee I suddenly don’t feel as though I have the stomach for. “What makes them think it’s Westbury?”

“This.” Opening up a different screen, Sam shows me CCTV footage of Jonathon Westbury strolling along a street crowded with happy looking people laden down with shopping bags. “It’s definitely him and… It just all adds up. The sex offender registry is accessible to anyone, it stands to reason given his obsession with the well being of children that he’d target paedophiles, Miami is where he probably feels his life ended and, assuming that he has to know we’re on to him, he’s decided to go out in a blaze of glory, so to speak.”

“Some glory,” I mutter, watching on the screen the man who held me captive walk, unsmiling and focussed, through the crowd. “I hear what you’re saying though. The profilers have come to the conclusion that he’s wanting to take out as many scum bags as he can before it’s all over.” Pausing, I sigh and place my cup on the table. “I take it we’re going to Miami, yeah?”

“I can’t say I know what it’s going to achieve but, yes, we’re going to Miami,” Sam replies flatly as he glances across at me to gauge my reaction. “A car will be here at one to take us to Heathrow.”

“And… Horvath?” I prompt. “From the way you ended the call I got the impression that…”

“He’s going to join us there later tomorrow,” Sam finishes, giving my knee a quick squeeze before shutting down the CCTV footage and returning to his emails. “There’s been a… development,” he adds with a rather unimpressed snort as he clicks on a link that brings up an archived news article on the screen. “The Met’s Commissioner, Sir Ralph Greenwood, his youngest grand daughter, Stella, was saved, with much fanfare, media attention and effusive, public thanks from the man himself, by Westbury. She had a problem with her heart that all the other cardiologists refused to operate on but Westbury took it upon himself to prove them all wrong and performed a miracle by saving her life.”

I roll my eyes, any interest I may have had in Westbury’s spectacular medical skills and the girl’s survival negated by what I know is coming. “Don’t tell me…”

“Is it that obvious?” Sam queries drily as he taps the photo of the Commissioner standing with his arm around Westbury at some function or another on the screen. “Look good together, don’t they…”

“Like best friends,” I sigh, pushing back my chair and standing up. “We’re to keep our interest in Westbury quiet, I take it.”

“It was made clear to me that while his capture is highly desirous, there is absolutely nothing to confirm he committed any crimes and that he is merely to be taken somewhere for… a rest.”

“What you mean to say is the ultimate aim of the powers that be is for Westbury to simply go away and for his crimes to be just brushed under the carpet,” I murmur, walking over to the windows and staring out across the rain covered cemetery. It having rained pretty much constantly since Christmas Eve, all the bouquets left on the graves by loved ones are drenched through and leached of their colour and it makes for an incredibly depressing vision. A sudden, sickening thought entering my mind, I spin around and stare at Sam. “We haven’t been charged with the task of… uh… taking him out, have we?”

Standing up, Sam shakes his head and walks over to the join me. “No,” he replies, placing his hands on my shoulders as I turn back to face the cemetery. “We’re just to assist, if we can, in apprehending him. What happens to him next is all up to Horvath.”

Reassured by Sam’s response, I relax back against him. “Maybe… I don’t know, maybe it’s for the best… Fuck Greenwood and his fear of negative press, but… I know there’ll be no closure for the families of his victims but… all the good he’s done, the people he’s saved and the time he’s devoted to that medical charity, if… if he’s named as a serial killer that will be all forgotten and that… that should be his legacy, not his skill at getting away for so long with murder…”

Maybe? I honestly don’t know. He should pay for what he’s done, but if that can be achieved by disappearing behind the locked doors of a shadowy government agency somewhere instead of causing a small, sensationalist media frenzy and having every sordid fact dragged out into the open, then… Is that wrong? Really?

“Maybe,” Sam murmurs, kissing the top of my head. “Come on. We’d better start getting ready. I also thought, if we’ve got time, that we might want to pack the Christmas tree up as… uh… there’s a chance we won’t be in the mood for it when we get back…”

“Oh well… It was fun while it lasted.” Turning around, I give Sam a quick hug and, wanting to appear more positive than I feel, smile. “Miami, huh? At least the weather should be better.”

~*~

I should have known this was how it would end.

Three days of searching, of following up leads and suggestions offered by the profilers, of always being just that little bit too late, of finding warmth still in the body as the name of the next likely target was fed to our phones.

Westbury on a mission to take out as many registered paedophiles as he can.

Was there really any other way it could have ended?

Cornered, no way out, a more welcome than resigned gleam of death in his eyes that I’ve seen more times in my career than I care to remember, a stinking derelict room in an abandoned apartment, a wild eyed, struggling hostage, weapon steady, finger on the trigger...

An impasse that, barring anything short of divine intervention, has only one unhappy ending.

“Jonathon…” I try again. I always try again. Voice loud enough to carry but at the same time soft enough not to alarm, free hand held out palm first in a non threatening gesture. I could give lessons on it I’ve done it so many times. “Put down the scalpel and let him go.”

“No.” Despite the fact he’s backed himself into a corner and has a gun trained on him, Jonathon Westbury exudes a curious sense of calm as, his arm locked around Kevin Fraser’s scrawny chest to keep him from struggling, he holds a scalpel to the man’s throat. “Walk away, Chris. This is something that needs to be done.”

Jonathon. Chris. We’re on first name basis now. Strange, that. He held me captive and planned to kill me, yet here we are almost on friendly terms.

I hold my ground. I don’t want to, and I wish I knew where Sam was as back up, even just in the form of being a witness would be nice, but I keep my gun aimed at Jonathon’s forehead like the good little agent I am and silently pray for a miracle. 

“You don’t want to do this.” I contemplate taking a step forward but the sight of the scalpel pressing ever closer to Fraser’s jugular stops me.

“But I do.” Jonathon smiles and I’m reminded of what an attractive man he is. In fact, if not for his murderous tendencies he’d be quite the catch. Handsome, educated, rich, generous. It’s just a shame killing has overtaken yachting as his number one hobby. “This… man… is a blight on society and needs to be removed. Now, this is a task I am more than prepared to take on. You, however, have no part to play and should be on your way.”

I shake my head. “I can’t let you do that.”

Sam will be here any minute now. He has to be. He’ll find what room we’re in, put aside his ‘I told you so’ lecture in respect to why we shouldn’t have separated in our search of the apartment block, and Jonathon, finding himself in the aim of two weapons, will put down the scalpel and.. we’ll all live happily every after. Well, Sam and I hopefully will, I don’t even want to think about what’s going to become of Jonathon once Horvath gets him, and as for Fraser… He can slither back into the gutter he crawled out from for all I care.

As prayers for a miracle go, it’s a pretty simple one.

“If you were aware of this… man’s… crimes you would not wish for him to live any more than I do,” Jonathon responds with a look of disappointment on his face that makes me think I’ve failed him somehow. “He is merely a waste of oxygen.”

That would be an understatement, actually. When I read his file I knew he’d be on Jonathon’s radar and, two victims later, here we are. Kevin Fraser. Twenty-six years old, convicted paedophile. Gets his sick and twisted rocks off on boys under the age of five. If it wouldn’t make me no better than Westbury I’d be perfectly happy putting a bullet in the perverted fucker myself.

“I agree. He’s scum.” I shrug, all the time my aim unwavering. “I still can’t let you kill him though.”

“Hey! Stop talkin’ about me like I ain’t even here,” Fraser exclaims indignantly as his ill advised spot of frantic struggling is stopped by the scalpel being applied with the slightest bit more force to his throat. “I… I got feelings, you know!”

“No you do not. If you were capable of feelings you never would have done any of those sick, horrific things you have done.” Jonathon directs his response to Fraser before looking over at me and slowly shaking his head. “I’m sorry, Chris. I did not want it to come to this.” 

“Come to…” Shit. His movements as elegant as they were unexpected, Jonathon transfers the scalpel to the hand around Fraser’s chest and pulls a Glock out from behind his back. A Glock which, of course, is immediately trained on me. Being a surgeon and having to have steady hands, I have no problem whatsoever in believing him capable of both firing off a shot and slitting Fraser’s throat simultaneously. “Jonathon…”

I have a clean shot but for some unknown reason I hesitate over taking it. I don’t doubt my aim and despite the contempt I feel for Fraser I know I’ll move to take out Jonathon before I allow him to kill him, but… I don’t want to. It’s as simple as that. His life is over one way or another – although I suspect he’d argue that his life ended with that of his wife’s – but, irrationally, I don’t want it to be at my hands.

“It has to be done,” Jonathon states, his finger curling around the trigger of the Glock as he raises the scalpel. “There is no other way.”

“No!”

It then all happens at once.

I sense Sam arrive behind me at the same time as Fraser makes one last ditch desperate attempt to free himself. Caught off guard by this, Jonathon drops the Glock in order to concentrate on getting he scalpel to Fraser’s throat. I’m moving forward to tackle Jonathon when the first bubble of blood begins to seep from Fraser’s neck. It’s only a superficial cut but it sends the man crazy and makes Jonathon even more determined to finish him off. Jonathon being considerably bigger than the anaemic looking Fraser, within seconds he’s got the upper hand and the blade is just coming down when a shot rings out and catches him in the shoulder. Grunting in pain, he releases Fraser who promptly scurries up to me, and drops down on the filthy floor.

Fraser, pissed that I didn’t do a better job of saving his worthless ass, rants and raves and clutches at my shirt as I try to get past him in order to go to Jonathon. “Ya useless mother fucker! Why didn’t ya take the fucking shot?”

“Shut up,” Sam hisses, hauling Fraser off me and shoving him out of the way, as…

I should have known.

I should have known there was never going to be any other ending.

His prey gone but the scalpel still in his hand, Jonathon locks eyes with me for a split second before gliding the blade swiftly across his throat. Blood, brilliant and plentiful, immediately begins to gush out of the gaping wound and he’s dead before either Sam or I get to him.

“Fuck!” I swear, shaking off the meant to be calming hand Sam places on my shoulder and quickly moving out of reach. “Fuck, fuck… fuck! Why? Why, huh? Why’d he have to go and do that? What… What a fucking waste.”

“The crazy mother fucker wanted to kill me,” Fraser complains, his equilibrium having been restored enough to allow him to walk over and peer at Jonathon’s body. “Good riddance, I say.”

My interest in Fraser being negligible at best and my own… annoyance… over everything that happened reigning supreme, I don’t pay his diatribe much attention and this most likely would have continued to be the case if not for him deciding to reiterate his displeasure at having his scummy life threatened by spitting in Jonathon’s face. This I see clearly and it immediately riles me to such an extent that everything else pales into insignificance. 

Leaping into furious action, I bound at Fraser and propel him both hard and heavily up against the crumbling wall. “Asshole!” I snarl, grabbing him by the shoulders of his t-shirt and slamming him repeatedly into the plaster. “You’re a worthless piece of shit who doesn’t deserve…”

“That’s enough,” the ever-reliable, calm voice of my partner interrupts as he places his hand around my waist and gently pulls me back from Fraser. “Leave it, Chris. He’s not worth it.”

“He’s an asshole,” I snap, lurching away from Sam so I can get my hands on Fraser one last time. “I should have shot the fucker myself!” Sam closing in on me fast, I know I don’t have time to mess around and settle for punching Fraser in his weaselly face before slamming my knee into his balls. “You’re lucky I don’t cut them off!” I add with slightly maniacal glee as Fraser, gasping and with tears of pain streaming down his face, slumps to his knees and Sam, far more forcefully this time, hauls me away.

“Have you quite finished?” Sam queries mildly, keeping one eye on me, his rabid partner, and the other on Fraser as he glares daggers at me.

“Finished,” I confirm with a nod. “You’re right. He’s not worth it.”

“I’m gonna have your badge!” Fraser wails, clutching his crotch and rolling around amongst the dust and debris on the floor. “I’m a victim here. You can’t go treatin’ me like this. I have rights, you know, and I’m gonna…”

An truly glacial expression of contempt ghosting over Sam’s face, he sighs and stalks back over to Fraser. “If you don’t shut up,” he states in that eerily polite voice of his that tells me he’s only one small step off joining me in – his, far more restrained but nonetheless as scary, if not even more so, version, of course – freakoutville, “I’ll put a bullet in you myself.”

Fraser, proving he’s not entirely stupid, shuts up without so much as a final whimper.

~*~ 

The suite Horvath’s influence somehow managed to book for us in the InterContinental offering expansive views of Biscayne Bay, I can both see and hear the New Year’s Eve festivities as they get into full swing on the foreshore. Rihanna bleats about not wanting the music stopped while the revellers, looking like a scene from C.S.I. Miami – only hopefully without the obligatory corpse and that red headed fucker in the never-leave-home-without-them sunglasses – shake their stuff and give every appearance of not having a care in the world. In a way, I envy their party mood. Even if only fuelled by alcohol or other drugs, they look happy and part of me would like to be down there laughing and smiling with them.

I could go. There’s nothing stopping me. Horvath no doubt privately relieved that the problem of Jonathon Westbury was so… neatly… taken care of, there are no recriminations from this evening’s events. The body was taken away in the back of a black van, Sam and I – together, not even in separate rooms, which just goes to show how little anyone cared – gave our statements, some child porn was “found” in Fraser’s backpack, which took care of him, and that was it. Westbury was dead, case – not that there ever officially was a case – closed. We got patted on the back (‘job well done’) and sent back to the hotel to ‘enjoy New Year’s Eve’.

So, I could wait for Sam to finish his shower and, dutifully following our commander’s orders, we could go out and join the party on the foreshore. The music would be loud enough to make talking a near impossibility and we could tell ourselves we were drinking in the name of fun, not just… to forget.

Only… I don’t want to. I don’t want to be around people and I don’t want to move my butt from this nice and comfy chair on the balcony. The night air isn’t too cold, I have a bottle of beer in easy reach and this, barring Sam expressing an all consuming desire to party and begging me to join him (this being something I feel is as likely to happen as a polar bear dropping from the sky) is how I plan to see in the new year. It could, I’m sure, be worse.

There was nothing more I could have done, nothing I could have done differently and, in a macabre sense, I honestly think the release of death was the best outcome for Westbury. No relentless interviews, no spending the rest of his life in a cell (not known by many to even exist) somewhere, no more nagging pain of remembered loss… Death was the best option for him. Possibly even the only option, the longed for option. I’m pleased that he’s dead, pleased that no more lives can end at his hand, pleased – although I can’t even say why and feel bad for even thinking it – that his death didn’t come at my hand.

Yet, amongst all this… weird… pleasure I keep telling myself I’m feeling, all I really feel is empty.

It shouldn’t have been like this. None of it should have. Westbury was a brilliant cardiologist, a man devoted to the care of those less fortunate. Knowing that his grief turned him into a – equally as brilliant, in its own way – killer just gnaws at me. How one careless, panicked reaction can reverberate around the world for so long and destroy so many lives, it just…

It just bites. It bites big time.

The music changing tracks just in time to allow me to hear the bathroom door open, I take a swig of beer and wait for Sam to join me out on the balcony. When he does I allow him to settle himself in the chair next to mine before saying what I should have said back in the derelict apartment instead of giving in to anger and launching myself at Fraser.

“Thank you.”

“What for?” Sam picks up the bottle of Budweiser I’d left on the table for him, peers at it morosely and with obvious reluctance twists off the cap. “Cheers.”

“Cheers.” I toast him with my bottle. “I mean it though, thank you.”

Taking a swallow of beer, Sam grimaces and looks at me expectantly. “And again I ask, what for?”

“For taking the shot,” I murmur, looking down at the bottle in my hand and scratching aimlessly at the paper label with my fingernail. “The shot I, by rights, should have taken instead of… dithering.”

“You would have taken it,” Sam, always the voice of reason and sensibility, replies. “I just took it for you, that’s all. There’s nothing to thank me for.”

“I…” I owe it to Sam to tell him the rest of it. “I didn’t want to take it,” I confess softly. “I had the shot, and I had no intention of letting that asshole Fraser die, but I… I didn’t want to take it.”

“I know.”

His response surprising me, I stop my assault on the Budweiser label and turn to face him. “I…”

“You forget that I know you, possibly better than you expect.” Sam smiles and toasts me again with his beer. “Mind you, I still maintain that your taste in alcohol is absolutely appalling.”

I smile back, Sam’s presence and obvious sense of faith in me being enough to shine a light in to my head full of darkness. “Suck it up,” I snicker, putting on a show of savouring a mouthful of beer before turning serious. “How though… How did you know?” 

“While not a bond per se, you… shared… something with Westbury,” Sam replies with a small shrug to indicate he thinks nothing of it. “You know I’m not exactly a believer in the concept of fate, but it’s almost as if all your allegedly random encounters were preordained. From the cemetery to the hospital, all the way to what took place in the stable near Rye and here in Miami. You don’t want to because you think it’s wrong or not… becoming… of a man who has always sworn to protect the innocent, but you sympathised with him. A horrible event turned his life upside down and you felt for him, Chris, that’s all. To be honest with you, I felt a little for him too.” Pausing, Sam shrugs again and looks over the balcony to the Bay. “Why do you think I only winged him…”

“I couldn’t stop myself from thinking,” I murmur, glossing over Sam’s quiet confession because I know better than to make, even though I approve and would only thank him, an issue out of it, “that Westbury’s case was very much one of those… there but for the grace of God go I… things. After the wedding, I… I could have gone down the same path he chose…”

“But you didn’t.”

“No, but…”

“You’re stronger than that, and you didn’t.” Sam glances at me, his expression a clear statement of his determination to have the last word. “Let it go, Chris. You had the willpower to soldier on while Westbury found himself choosing a different route. I sympathise, in a way, with him too, but it’s history. We have our suspicions, but no concrete proof that he killed those people and now he too is dead. It’s over.”

I sigh and return to my wanton destruction of the beer label. “I just… Whatever. It’s all just a fucking mess.”

“You’ll get no argument from me on that point,” Sam replies, leaning his head back and gazing up at the sky. “Still, it’s over now. We’ll probably never know what exactly made him choose his victims and there will be those that go to their own graves without ever having had closure over the death of their loved one, but it’s over. The whole sordid affair is over.”

An unwanted thought, one that I haven’t had cause to think about for a while, what with everything else that has been happening, entering my head, I sigh again and look across at Sam. “He killed your friend.”

“We have no proof of that. We have no proof he killed anyone.”

“But you’re as confident as I am that everything adds up, cold hard proof or not, that he’s behind that collection of deaths we’ve compiled.”

“Oh, I’m sure he did all those things we suspect him of. I’m just not going to lose any sleep over not ever going to have those cold hard facts you just mentioned.”

“But…” I don’t know why I feel compelled to raise this again, but I do. “Westbury, he killed your friend, Tim. You… You have every right to be pissed with him, to want to be able to give his brother answers.”

“I’m sorry that he killed Tim, of course I am. And I’d be lying if I said I wouldn’t like to know just what it was Tim did to get in his bad books,” Sam replies, finally lowering his gaze from the sky and looking over at me. “He let you live though,” he adds plainly. “He might have killed Tim, but you’re still here and, although I know it’s selfish of me, that really is the main thing to me.”

Never really having stopped to think about what Sam’s opinions on things might be, I’m taken aback by his statement and don’t know how to reply.

“I know I struggle to show it,” Sam continues, blushing slightly as he glances down at his lap, “but you mean a lot to me and having you come back into my life is the best thing that happened to me this year. Again, I don’t show it and I take you for granted, but I… I don’t want to lose you, Chris. Not again, and certainly not permanently. Those days when you were missing were intolerable and knowing that he held your life in his hands and allowed you to live, well, for that I can forgive him pretty much anything. You… You’re what matters most to me.”

Touched to the point of there being a lump in my throat by Sam’s unique way – or so I’m choosing to see it, anyway – of saying ‘I love you’, I place my beer on the table and stand up. “Well, when you put it that way,” I murmur, swinging my leg over Sam’s and, to his surprise if the muffled huff that just came out of his mouth is anything to go by, settling myself down on his lap so that we’re directly facing one another. “You know, you’re pretty important to me too.”

“That’s reassuring to know.” Sam starts to smirk but my hands gently cupping his cheeks stops him. “Hey…”

It strikes me, as I kiss his forehead, his nose and finally his lips, that I’ve been as remiss in saying it as he has. “You’re stubborn, predictable and stuck in your ways,” I whisper as he sits up a little straighter and slides his arms around my waist, “but I do love you and, regardless of everything that has happened this year, I can’t think of anywhere else I’d rather be or anyone else I’d rather be seeing the new year in with. Admit it, Sammy, you’re stuck with me.”

Going on the speed with which his lips capture mine as the crowd on the foreshore begin to loudly count down the final moment of the year, I think it’s fair to say it’s a condition – Gods be willing – he’ll quite happily cope with.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

“Come on, Chris.” Sam’s voice floats into the bedroom from wherever he is in the apartment. “If you don’t get a move on we’re going to risk being late.”

“Given that he’s the only one likely to care, I’m sure the Father could grant us a couple of minutes leeway,” I mutter, shrugging into my coat as I walk out of the bedroom and find Sam hovering impatiently by the dining table. “Did someone come to the front door?” I query, trying to translate the decidedly peculiar expression – like he’s been caught out at something – on Sam’s face as I pull my gloves out of my coat pocket and begin to put them on. “I thought I heard the doorbell.”

“You must have imagined it,” Sam replies with a wan smile as he jiggles his keys in his hand in preference to meeting my gaze. “I’ve been waiting for you out here ever since I finished getting dressed and I didn’t hear anything.”

“Oh. Okay.” I’m not entirely sure I believe him but, unable to think of a reason why he’d be lying to me, shrug my acceptance anyway. “You’re right. I must have imagined it.”

“And you wonder why I think your mind works in mysterious ways,” Sam comments glibly, glancing in the direction of the living room before beginning to walk towards the kitchen. “Now, are you finally ready?”

Strangely convinced that Sam is up to something – on today of all days? – I take a quick look towards the living room and note that the door is firmly shut. This is out of place for two reasons. One, I don’t as a rule keep doors closed on empty rooms because I don’t much see the point and, two, I distinctively remember it being opened when I went in to the bedroom to get ready. Curious, but not enough to further delay our… appointment… I trail after Sam and follow him out the back door and into the cemetery. 

Dressed in a charcoal suit under a dark grey woollen coat, he looks sombrely handsome and I can’t resist the urge to catch up to him and take his hand in mine. Giving it a squeeze, which he returns, we fall effortlessly in step and walk silently towards our destination. The morning is bright, very still and bitterly cold. Our breath comes out in white puffs as our feet sink in the soggy grass and I think longingly of my nice and cosy bed. Today is the first day of the new year where rain hasn’t been forecast though and for that I’m grateful. What we’re about to witness is going to be uncomfortable enough without having freezing rain added into the equation as well.

Squeezing Sam’s hand a little tighter, I glance at him out of the corner of my eye and hope he knows just how grateful I am for him too. If he hadn’t, so calmly and without so much as a blink of surprise, taken my off-the-cuff, blurted out wish on board and efficiently put the wheels in motion to make it happen it’s unlikely we’d be walking across the lawn now. Left to me I probably would have second guessed the… appropriateness… of what I wanted to see done until it was too late. Sam though, he simply smiled, agreed immediately and picked up the phone. There’s a part of me that suspects he’d merely been waiting for me to come out and say it.

If the truth was ever made public knowledge there’d be a lot who would argue that the body of Jonathon Westbury should be buried in a pine coffin in an unmarked grave. That, as a murderer, he shouldn’t be afforded the rights of a Christian burial. The thought of that happening though, and it would have, given the rush in which Horvath and co were wanting to brush it all under the rug, just didn’t sit right with me. For all the people he’d killed his work as a surgeon or his time spent with Médecins Sans Frontières would have saved hundreds, if not thousands more. He was also a loving husband and it was the thought of him not being buried with his wife that really niggled. It might be an essentially pointless gesture, and maybe he doesn’t deserve it, but I know I feel better for having been involved in making it happen

The internment of Westbury’s ashes with his wife’s coffin could – possibly should – have been done without fanfare of any kind and simply been slipped in next to the tombstone. I got it into my head though that if it was going to be done it had to be done properly and that a short service needed to be delivered by a priest. That too could have been done privately but, wanting to see the case through to the bitter end, I decided I had to be present to pay my last… respects. And, well, if I had to be there then that meant, solely on his own accord, Sam had to be there as well.

I’m not looking forward to it, and I doubt very much that it will offer any form of closure, but as far as I’m concerned anyway it’s one of those things that simply needs to be done.

Nearing Louise Westbury’s grave, I spot the surprising sight of Backup and Spencer, both dressed in black, standing by it but no sign of the priest. “Sam?”

“They wanted to be here,” he replies, smiling, “for you…”

“But…” I shake my head, my feeling that something has to be afoot growing as the familiar forms of the King and David walk across the cemetery towards us. “Sam? What’s going on here?”

“Having pretty much been involved from the start, they wanted to be here too.” Sam’s smile increases as, it almost being a tradition when it comes to attending funerals together, Backup walks over to meet us and links her elbow through mine. She smiles a greeting and gives me a small bump with her hip as, three abreast, we join Spencer by the grave.

“Thank you,” I murmur, not really knowing what else to say as my list of reasons to be grateful grows to include both the thoughtfulness and the presence of my friends. “Where’s the priest though? Shouldn’t he be here by now?”

Raising an eyebrow, Spencer glances at Backup before turning his attention to Sam. “You haven’t…” He leaves the rest of the question unsaid.

“No.” Sam shakes his head and lifts his shoulders in a small, apologetic shrug. “Be it rightly or wrongly, I wanted it to be a surprise.”

“Wanted… what… to be a surprise?” Thinking she may well be my best hope of getting a quick answer, I direct my question Backup. “Does someone want to fill me in here?”

Backup tightens her hold on my elbow and smiles. “Sam?”

“I may have put the service back fifteen minutes to give you a better chance of witnessing… uh… part two of my plan,” Sam half explains as he tilts his head in the direction of cemetery’s main parking lot. “And, look… With, to my great relief, perfect timing it all appears to be falling into place nicely.”

His response hardly having answered anything other than why the priest hasn’t arrived yet, I bite back a sigh and look out towards the parking lot. To my amazement a large number of people, eighty or more at least, are making their way across the lawn. Hardly believing my eyes, I quickly glance around the rest of the cemetery and, seeing no sign of any other burials taking place this morning, deduce that they really must be heading our way. The mourners – if that indeed is what they are – come from all walks of life. Male, female, young, old. Couples, obvious family groups, singles. Some dressed in black, some dressed as though they’re taking time out from work, a few clearly dressed in whatever first came to hand when they rolled out of bed this morning. Some smiling, some crying, others simply looking solemn. Then, behind them all, some I recognise. Horvath, with the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, looking all official in full dress uniform and holding the hand of a small blond girl wearing a red coat by his side.

“Sam?” I whisper as, not really believing what I’m seeing, I try to surreptitiously remove my hand from his. I’m perfectly happy where it is, and I don’t want to, but nor do I want him to feel as though he has to keep holding it in front of an audience. “What… What’s going on here?”

“I may have… put the word out amongst the hospitals and support groups for heart patients that Jonathon Westbury unfortunately passed away suddenly while holidaying in America and that there was going to be a small memorial service for him today,” Sam replies, closing his fingers around mine and making his intentions clear by holding on tight. “He did, after all, do a lot of good and saved a lot of lives. I thought it only fitting that those who knew him or who benefited from his skill have the opportunity to pay their last respects.”

Smiling, I stop trying to get Sam to release my hand and nod a greeting at Horvath and the Commissioner as they position themselves by the tombstone. “And you have the gall to call me a big softie,” I murmur, watching as first another man wearing an expensive suit and coat followed by the priest, carrying the simple brass urn holding Jonathon Westbury’s ashes, joins them. “This… This is wonderful.”

And, regardless of the crimes we’ll never be able to prove he committed, fitting.

“See that guy over there,” Backup comments, nudging me, “that’s the local director of Médecins Sans Frontières. He was meant to fly out to Africa this morning but when he heard when the service was going to be he changed his flight.”

“Assuming he’s heard about the will, no wonder he thought it a good idea to put in an appearance,” Sam mutters quietly as the priest prepares to start the service. “Did you hear? Between leaving Chris and sneaking into America, Westbury wrote a new will. A third of his quite considerable fortune goes to Médecins Sans Frontières, while the rest goes towards what in due course will be known as the Louise Westbury Grief Counselling Service.”

“Sounds good to me,” Backup replies, lifting her finger to her lips. “Now, shhh…”

The service is both simple and elegant and over within twenty minutes. Not wanting to over think anything, I listen intently to the Father and bask in the feeling of warmth and contentment I’m getting from not only the feel of Sam’s hand but also Backup’s elbow as we remain linked together. I don’t, even though I’d quite like to, stare at the other mourners or try to work out who amongst them are the patients or the colleagues-slash-friends. Horvath and the Commissioner, both stony faced and the very picture of the perfectly composed mourner, don’t acknowledge our presence and stride off across the cemetery the second the service is concluded. Others, carrying flowers, linger and wait before the priest has left before approaching the grave. 

Taking this as our cue to leave, we walk over to my gate before saying both our hellos and our goodbyes to the King and David. Although, amazingly enough, I have enough wits about me to invite them in for a coffee, they, having to get back to work, regretfully decline and leave us to return to their car.

Grinning, Spencer places his hand on Sam’s shoulder as he starts to walk through the gate. “Have you…”

“No.” Sam returns his grin and winks at Backup. “You can come in and bear witness to all hell breaking loose if you’d like.”

“Having been there, done that already,” Backup replies as she too joins in on the strange, Cheshire Cat-like grinning that’s going on, “I think we may just leave you to it.”

“Enjoy,” Spencer offers, his grin broadening as Sam’s seems to dim a little. “Keep us informed as to how it goes though. I know I speak for both of us when I say we’re looking forward to hearing all about it.”

“Er…” Unlocking the back door, I turn around and look at everyone expectantly. “Hello? I hope you realise I have no idea what you’re all talking about.”

“Enjoy it while it lasts, I say,” Spencer snickers, sliding his arm around Backup’s waist and pulling her close. “Come on. Let’s go home and leave them to it.”

Frustrated by knowing I’m the only one who doesn’t know what’s going on here, I rush through our farewells, mumble promises that I’ll definitely let them know how it – whatever ‘it’ is – goes and that, yes, dinner at their place tomorrow night sounds lovely, before opening the door and fixing Sam with a look. “Well? As it’s clearly your day for surprises, are you going to tell me what that was all about?”

“I will admit the timing is a bit… unfortunate,” Sam responds cryptically, his grin having now dropped to a weak, possibly even sick-with-nerves smile, “but… Your Christmas present, the one I told you wouldn’t be ready until after Christmas, well… uh… it’s now ready and… uh… waiting for you.”

“Oh!” Now it’s my turn to smile. What with everything else that had happened I’d forgotten about my ‘still-being-prepared’ present and look forward to seeing what it is. “Why didn’t you say?” I query, taking off my gloves and coat as I walk through the kitchen and drop them on the dining table. “Come on then! Where is it?” 

Spinning around, I find Sam staring open mouthed at the now opened door into the living room. “What?”

Shaking off his obvious shock, Sam swears under his breath and bolts for the living room. “Shit! Did you open this door?”

“No. I did notice it was closed when we left for the service though.” My curiosity now at an all time high level – so much for thinking ‘being prepared’ possibly meant artwork of some description – I jog after Sam and watch with growing bemusement as, still swearing, he runs his finger repeatedly through his hair and gets down on his hands and knees to peer under the sofa. “Uh… If you’d like to tell me what it is I should be looking for.”

Ignoring both me and the large, beautifully gift wrapped box on the coffee table, Sam stands up and, all the time looking around him anxiously, hurries into the bedroom. “Fine. I’ll wait for it to be a surprise then,” I mutter, eyeing the box for a moment before following him. “Am I right in thinking the surprise is now as much for you as it is me?”

Sam, now down on all knees and peering under the bed, intersperses his increasingly colourful and creative swearing to grunt at me. “It was supposed to go much… smoother… than this,” he grinds out as a triumphant look suddenly appears in his eyes and he flops down on his stomach to stretch his arm out under the bed. “Don’t let the damn thing get past you,” he adds cryptically.

“Don’t let what… Uh!” A small, four legged ball of bluey-grey fur rapidly exiting out from under my bed causing the rest of my – now redundant – question to die on my lips, I crouch down and through sheer luck more than skill manage to scoop it up. Annoyed at having been caught, the kitten yowls a complaint almost as heartfelt as Sam’s swearing and gazes up at me through bright golden eyes. It doesn’t scratch or squirm though and by the time Sam, sneezing and brushing dust from his clothes, is back on his feet has given up and started to purr. “You got me a kitten!” I exclaim, knowing that stating the obvious in this instance would hardly add to the surreal nature of the moment at all. “Sam, I… But I thought…”

His smile having been returned by both the retrieval of the errant kitten and my reaction, Sam beams at me and cautiously strokes the kitten’s tiny head with his finger. “Belated though it may be, Merry Christmas, Chris,” he states, leaning forward and kissing my forehead. “I can’t shake the feeling that she’ll prove to be more trouble than she’s worth and I’m already choosing to turn a deaf ear to all the damage she managed to cause to Backup and Spencer’s laundry while they waited to bring her over for me, but… You wanted a cat, and I wanted to get you something special, so… Uh… Ta-da! You now have a cat.”

“I knew I heard the front door,” I murmur, stroking the now very sleepy looking kitten under its chin. “They dropped her off this morning while I was getting dressed, yes?”

“Mmm…” Sam nods as he steps back and takes a seat on the edge of the bed. “The box in the living room too, the one containing everything I hope one needs to keep a kitten fed, toileted and entertained. According to Spencer, James was very enamoured with her and I suspect it won’t be very long until they have one of their own.”

Joining Sam on the bed, I carefully hold up the kitten and wave it in front of him. “How could you not be taken in by such a cute little face like this?”

“Yeah, well… We’ll see,” Sam mutters, flinching as I gently place the kitten on his lap. “Uh… Chris?”

“Just confirming my suspicions that you two look adorable together,” I retort, shifting closer to Sam and placing my arm around his shoulders. “Besides, you need to… bond.”

“Excuse me?”

“Well, you know… For better and for worse and all that.”

“What?”

“Well, we have a tiny mouth to feed now.”

“Chris…” Clearly unsure as to whether I’m joking or not, Sam shakes his head and shoots me a wary look. “You’re not implying that I… share joint custody, are you?”

I beam and hug him to me. “Of course I am. We’re in this together.”

“I…” Shaking his head again, Sam looks as though he’s about to frown when the kitten stretches out across both our laps, looks up at us and daintily yawns. “I think we’re boring her,” he comments blandly before starting to laugh.

Feeling happier than I can remember feeling for a long time, I start to laugh as well and relax against Sam’s side as he snakes his arm around my waist. “And long may it, our boring her together, last…”

~ end ~


End file.
